Background
B.P., a Guatemalan citizen who entered the United States unlawfully, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance after working as a confidential informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration. Because the conviction qualified as an aggravated felony, the Department of Homeland Security issued a final administrative removal order in November 2020 under the streamlined removal procedure for certain criminal noncitizens.
B.P. later asserted that cartel members would torture and kill him if he returned to Guatemala. After withholding-only proceedings, an immigration judge denied deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture. Following a remand for additional findings, the immigration judge again denied CAT relief, and the Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed on August 14, 2025. B.P. filed a petition for review challenging only the denial of CAT relief.
The Court’s Holding
The Eighth Circuit dismissed the petition because it lacked jurisdiction to review a CAT order standing alone. A CAT order does not determine deportability, order removal, or merge into a final removal order. Judicial review of a CAT ruling therefore requires an independent jurisdictional basis—namely, a timely petition seeking review of a final order of removal. B.P.’s petition referred only to the denial of CAT protection and could not plausibly be read as challenging his removal order.
Even if the petition were construed as challenging the removal order, it was untimely. The final order was DHS’s November 2020 administrative removal order, not the BIA’s August 2025 CAT decision, and B.P. filed nearly five years after the statutory 30-day deadline. The court further held that the deadline, although a nonjurisdictional mandatory claims-processing rule, is not subject to equitable tolling because the statute’s text and Congress’s goal of expediting removal proceedings rebut the presumption that tolling is available.
Key Takeaways
- A denial of CAT protection is not itself a final order of removal and cannot be reviewed without an independent basis for appellate jurisdiction.
- For a noncitizen in streamlined administrative removal proceedings, the final administrative removal order becomes final upon issuance, triggering the 30-day period for seeking review.
- The Eighth Circuit held that the 30-day filing deadline in 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(1) is mandatory and not subject to equitable tolling.
Why It Matters
The decision requires noncitizens seeking CAT protection after a streamlined removal order to preserve a timely challenge to the underlying final removal order if they want appellate review of a later CAT ruling. A petition directed only at CAT relief will not supply jurisdiction.
The court also rejected the approach of several other circuits that permit equitable tolling of the 30-day deadline, creating a consequential disagreement over whether late petitions challenging removal orders may proceed in exceptional circumstances.