The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has dismissed a Honduran man’s petition for review, holding that it had no statutory jurisdiction to examine an immigration judge’s negative “reasonable fear” determination because the man never challenged his final order of removal itself. The decision in Castro-Fuentes v. Blanche was reported on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, with the court’s reasoning summarised by Justia from the opinion and the ruling also listed in Law360’s immigration coverage the same day.
Source: Justia — Castro-Fuentes v. Blanche, Sixth Circuit summary
The court did not decide whether the man’s fear claims were right or wrong. It decided a narrower, structural question — which door a person in his position must use to get a federal appeals court to act — and found that the door he used was not open to it.
Source: Justia — Castro-Fuentes v. Blanche, Sixth Circuit summary
A case that began with a 2017 removal order
The petitioner, a native and citizen of Honduras, entered the United States without authorisation and applied for asylum, withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture, saying he feared harm from gangs who had killed his father. In 2017 an immigration judge denied all of his claims and ordered his removal to Honduras. The Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed his appeal, and he did not seek judicial review of that outcome at the time.
Source: Justia — Castro-Fuentes v. Blanche, Sixth Circuit summary
He was later removed from the United States. In 2021 he re-entered the country without authorisation and was detained. In 2023 the Department of Homeland Security reinstated his earlier removal order — the fast-track process by which a prior removal order is put back into effect after an unlawful re-entry — and, the court’s summary notes, he did not contest that reinstatement.
Source: Justia — Castro-Fuentes v. Blanche, Sixth Circuit summary
The new fear claim: political opposition
While awaiting removal under the reinstated order, the man was given a reasonable fear interview based on new claims — this time, fear connected to his political opposition to the president of Honduras. An asylum officer found he had not established a reasonable possibility of persecution or torture. An immigration judge, reviewing that finding, reached the same conclusion.
Source: Justia — Castro-Fuentes v. Blanche, Sixth Circuit summary
He then petitioned the Sixth Circuit, challenging the immigration judge’s negative reasonable fear determination and arguing that there had been due process violations and incorrect findings in that process. What he did not challenge, the court emphasised, was the final order of removal or the reinstatement order itself.
Source: Justia — Castro-Fuentes v. Blanche, Sixth Circuit summary
Why the court said it could not act
The Sixth Circuit held that its review authority is limited to final orders of removal. Orders denying protection under the Convention Against Torture or withholding of removal — and the procedural steps that lead to them, such as a negative reasonable fear determination — do not themselves count as final orders of removal, and they do not affect the validity of a removal order, the court said.
Source: Justia — Castro-Fuentes v. Blanche, Sixth Circuit summary
On that basis the court dismissed the petition for review. It recognised, in doing so, that Supreme Court precedent now abrogates — ends — the Sixth Circuit’s earlier practice of allowing review of such orders even when the person had not challenged a final removal order. In plain terms, a route that lawyers in the circuit had previously been able to use is now closed.
Source: Justia — Castro-Fuentes v. Blanche, Sixth Circuit summary
For people whose old removal orders have been reinstated after re-entry — a group that includes many long-time residents picked up in workplace and traffic-stop enforcement — the ruling underlines a hard procedural line: a federal appeals court in the Sixth Circuit can only step in through a challenge to the final removal order itself, within the strict deadlines that apply to it. A separate challenge aimed only at a fear-screening decision will be dismissed without the court reaching the fear claim at all. Anyone in this position needs immigration counsel immediately, because the filing window for the order that does count is short and, as courts have repeatedly held, rarely extended.
What happens next
With the petition dismissed, the reinstated removal order stands as the operative order in the case, and the Sixth Circuit’s decision leaves the negative reasonable fear findings in place. The ruling is about jurisdiction, not about Honduras or about the man’s safety: the court made no finding that he would or would not face persecution or torture. Its wider effect is precedential — future petitioners in the Sixth Circuit, which covers Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, will have to frame any challenge around the final removal order itself or expect the same jurisdictional dismissal.
Source: Justia — Castro-Fuentes v. Blanche, Sixth Circuit summary