Maryland Criminal & Immigration Lawyer Blog
Immigration law, particularly that subset dealing with deportation, is a complex area that involves numerous procedural steps, filing requirements, supplemental documentation, and deadlines. Coming up short in any area may be fatal to your case and lead to your deportation, so the stakes are extraordinarily high. To ensure you receive the benefit of all the protections the law allows, you owe it to yourself to retain an experienced Maryland deportation defense lawyer to handle your case.
A recent U.S. Supreme Court case shows how complicated and confusing procedural issues related to deportation can be, especially when the immigrant alleges a fear of torture.
The individual at the center of the case, P.R., was a Jamaican man who entered the U.S. on a tourist visa in 1995 and remained in the country after the visa expired. The Department of Homeland Security took the man into custody in January 2021 and issued a final deportation order later that month.
P.R. fought his deportation to Jamaica using the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The CAT bars sending a person to a country if “there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.” P.R. told U.S. authorities that a “drug kingpin” with ties to the government had threatened him and his family, and had already ordered the murders of two of his cousins.
After earlier decisions — one against the man and one in his favor — the Board of Immigration Appeals decided on May 31, 2022, that the immigrant had not presented sufficient evidence. This meant that P.R.’s deportation to Jamaica was allowed to proceed.
On June 3, 2022, the immigrant appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. The court refused to hear his appeal, concluding that it was filed too late. An immigrant has 30 days to file a “petition for review” asking a federal appeals court to overturn a previous final ruling. The 4th Circuit court stated that the 30-day deadline for requesting appellate review expired in late February 2021 (30 days after the issuance of the final deportation order), not 30 days after the Board of Immigration Appeals’ May 2022 decision rejecting the man’s CAT arguments.
On June 26, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling, which represented a setback for P.R. The Supreme Court ruled that a CAT order does not “affect the validity of a deportation order in any way.” In other words, if a deportation-related order is a final order, an immigrant’s choice to later ask for CAT relief does not pause or restart the 30-day deadline for seeking an appeal.
Even while fighting to deport P.R., the DHS acknowledged the practical difficulties that interpreting the law this way would create. As the department noted, an immigrant who wants only to challenge deportation to their native country may erroneously wait to ask for appellate review until a court denies them protection under the CAT.
An ‘Incoherent’ Outcome, According to the Dissent
What the court’s ruling means, in practice, is that immigrants facing a final deportation must file an appeal request within 30 days of the original final order, even if they subsequently plan to seek relief under the CAT and even though those hearings may take place in the future. Justice Sotomayor’s dissent labeled the majority’s interpretation “incoherent,” but nevertheless, it is now the law by which immigrants facing deportation must abide.
Does all this sound confusing… maybe even incomprehensible? One of the things this outcome teaches is that the law is not always straightforward. It may be arcane, confusing, and sometimes illogical. If you need to seek relief from a deportation order, you need legal representation that is fully versed in the law’s twists, turns, and thorny patches… and can ensure that your case will not be tripped up by a procedural technicality. The skilled Maryland immigration law attorneys at Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC are here to provide that sort of knowledgeable, diligent, and reliable advocacy to you. Our team has extensive experience handling deportation matters, so we know how to maximize the law’s protections on your behalf. Contact us today at 301-519-2801 or use our online form to learn more about our services.