WASHINGTON — An undeliverable hearing notice no longer obliges an immigration court to try anything else, the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled on October 22. In Matter of Chamorro Castillo, 30 I&N Dec. 170 (BIA 2026), the Board held that when a notice mailed to the only address in the record comes back undeliverable, there are no further reasonable steps a court can take, so an in absentia removal order based on that mailing can stand, Immigration Analytics reported in a detailed analysis of the decision. The decision is listed among the Board's Volume 30 precedent decisions in the Executive Office for Immigration Review's Virtual Law Library.
Source: Immigration Analytics, Oct. 23, 2026
The respondent was released from detention in 2019, and the Department of Homeland Security told the court his address on an ICE Form I-830, which also listed a phone number, Immigration Analytics reported. The court mailed his hearing notice to that address; it came back marked unable to forward. He missed the January 2020 hearing and was ordered removed. When he moved to reopen, his own documents confirmed the address was correct, and a postal employee's letter explained that his mailbox had been full, so the mail was held 10 days and returned as unclaimed. An immigration judge and then the Board, in 2020, found the notice adequate.
Source: Immigration Analytics, Oct. 23, 2026
The Ninth Circuit sent the case back in January 2026 to apply United States v. Rivera-Valdes, a 2025 decision built on the Supreme Court's Jones v. Flowers. Its rule, as the Board quoted it, is that notice is not reasonably calculated to reach someone when the government knows its method of service was ineffective and takes no additional steps to effect notice that are reasonably available to it. The respondent argued the judge could simply have called the phone number on the I-830 form.
Source: Chamorro-Castillo v. Bondi, No. 20-73402 (9th Cir. 2026), via Justia
Chief Appellate Immigration Judge Garry Malphrus, writing for a three-member panel, rejected that argument, Immigration Analytics reported. Immigration courts are quasi-judicial bodies, not investigators, the Board reasoned, and the regulations put the burden on the parties: respondents must report address changes on Form EOIR-33, and DHS must report a released respondent's address on Form I-830. A judge phoning a respondent would raise problems of one-sided contact, identity verification and statutory confidentiality protections. The court, the decision states, mailed the hearing notice to the respondent's correct address, and there was no other address in the record.
Source: Immigration Analytics, Oct. 23, 2026
The holding is narrower than its headline. The Board distinguished Rivera-Valdes, where the notice went to an address missing a street suffix, and the Ninth Circuit's September ruling in Meza Medina v. Blanche, where the address came from a third party; here, the address was right. The Board also noted that neither it nor immigration judges can see a respondent's A-file, and added that it is appropriate for DHS to inform the Board and the immigration courts when it learns of an address different from the one in the court record — a sentence analysts say leaves a door open for a respondent who can show DHS had a newer address and never passed it along.
Source: Immigration Analytics, Oct. 23, 2026
The stakes are large. EOIR adjudication statistics cited in the analysis show 311,130 in absentia removal orders in fiscal 2025 and 281,867 in the first three quarters of fiscal 2026, against 34,330 in fiscal 2016; orders against people released from custody reached 17,565 through the third quarter of fiscal 2026, already above the 16,003 recorded for all of fiscal 2025. The practical lesson is blunt: a respondent must file Form EOIR-33 with the court within five days of moving, and a returned envelope — even one returned because a mailbox overflowed — will not by itself support reopening. The precedent applies to pending cases and motions to reopen, and it can be tested by a petition for review. This report is general information, not legal advice.
Source: Immigration Analytics (citing EOIR statistics), Oct. 23, 2026