Your U visa petition has been sitting at USCIS for three years and your next immigration court hearing is in six weeks. Until October 16, the law gave you a presumption that the judge would wait. It does not anymore.
On October 16, 2026, the Board of Immigration Appeals decided Matter of L. Ramirez, 30 I&N Dec. 157 (BIA 2026) (Interim Decision #4260), and overruled the continuance standard in Matter of Sanchez Sosa, 25 I&N Dec. 807 (BIA 2012). For fourteen years, Sanchez Sosa held that “as a general rule, there is a rebuttable presumption that an alien who has filed a prima facie approvable application with the USCIS will warrant a favorable exercise of discretion for a continuance for a reasonable period of time.” Id. at 815. That presumption is gone. There is now no special rule for U visas, and the Board said so directly: “The standard for considering a continuance request to await the adjudication of a visa petition or the availability of a visa is the same for any type of visa.”
What the standard is now
An immigration judge “may grant a motion for continuance for good cause shown.” 8 C.F.R. § 1003.29. What good cause means comes from the Attorney General’s decision in Matter of L-A-B-R-, 27 I&N Dec. 405 (A.G. 2018), and the respondent carries the burden. Id. at 415.
Two primary factors: the likelihood you will receive the collateral relief, and whether that relief would materially affect the outcome of the removal proceedings. Id. at 413. Then the secondary factors, which is where these cases are actually won and lost: your diligence in pursuing the relief, DHS’s position on the motion, the length of the continuance you are asking for, and the procedural history of the case. Id. The primary factors do not control when the secondary factors weigh against continuing. Matter of L-N-Y-, 27 I&N Dec. 755, 758 (BIA 2020).
And the sentence that matters most for U visas: good cause “does not exist” when visa availability “is too remote.” L-A-B-R-, 27 I&N Dec. at 418.
L. Ramirez also reaffirms Matter of Quintero, 18 I&N Dec. 348, 350 (BIA 1982) — respondents are not entitled to delay completion of removal proceedings pending the availability of a visa.
The other door was already closed
If your plan was administrative closure instead, that was shut eight months earlier. In Matter of Ibarra-Vega, 29 I&N Dec. 476 (BIA 2026), decided February 27, 2026, the Board held that when a U visa is not immediately available and the record does not establish one is likely to be available in the reasonably near future, administrative closure over DHS’s objection is inappropriate. The Board went further: it and the immigration judges “have no authority to use administrative closure as a de facto extra-statutory form of relief.” Id. at 480.
Closure and continuances are governed by separate regulations — 8 C.F.R. § 1003.18(c) for immigration judges, § 1003.1(l) for the Board, § 1003.29 for continuances. As of October 16, both roads lead to the same place.
Why the Board changed the rule
The arithmetic. Congress capped U visas at 10,000 per fiscal year, and the cap applies to principal petitioners only. INA § 214(p)(2)(A), 8 U.S.C. § 1184(p)(2)(A).
When Sanchez Sosa was decided in June 2012, roughly 10,250 I-918 petitions were pending — about one year’s worth of visas. A one-year continuance was a realistic request. Today there are nearly 250,000 pending petitions, which means a petitioner filing now will likely wait more than two decades for a visa to become available. Ibarra-Vega, 29 I&N Dec. at 479.
The Board was careful about where it placed the blame: these wait times are “not the result of any action or inaction by USCIS.” Id. at 480. They exist because demand exceeds what Congress authorized. That distinction is not academic, and I come back to it below.
What happened in the case itself
The respondent in L. Ramirez was the victim of an armed robbery in February 2016. DHS put him in removal proceedings in June 2017. He filed his U visa petition with a waiver application in September 2017. At his October 2018 hearing he conceded removability and got a continuance to prepare. At the August 2019 hearing he got a second continuance over DHS’s opposition, and the judge told him plainly that the case could not be continued indefinitely. At the January 2020 hearing the petition was still pending, he asked for another continuance, and the judge denied it and ordered him removed.
Here is the part practitioners should sit with. The Board found that the primary factors favored him. He appeared prima facie eligible for the U visa and the waiver, and approval would have resolved the removability charge. He lost anyway, on the secondary factors — and the single most significant one was that he put no timeframe on the request, before the judge or on appeal. The Board called it a request “for an unknown and potentially lengthy period of time.” It also held his delay against him: he never explained why he waited eighteen months after the robbery to file.
The appeal was decided more than six years after the hearing. The petition still has not been adjudicated.
The mistakes that end these cases
Filing a receipt notice and nothing else. In Ibarra-Vega the only thing the respondent submitted against DHS’s motion was a USCIS receipt. The Board: “The absence of evidence demonstrating prima facie eligibility for the collateral benefit sought strongly militates against a grant.” A receipt proves something was filed. It proves nothing about whether it will be approved.
Asking for an open-ended continuance. This is what sank L. Ramirez with the primary factors in his favor. “Until USCIS decides” is not a timeframe. It is an invitation to deny.
Waiting to file the I-918. Diligence is an express factor. Every month between the qualifying crime and the filing is a month the government will put in front of the judge.
Conceding removability and seeking nothing else. Both L. Ramirez and Matter of Pinzon Rozo, 29 I&N Dec. 507, 510 (BIA 2026), lean on the same fact: the respondent conceded removability and sought no form of relief. A case with nothing in it but a continuance request is a case the judge can finish.
Treating a bona fide determination as status. A BFD-based work permit and deferred action are worth having. They are not lawful status and they do not stop a removal order.
What to do now
Build the prima facie record, not the receipt. The full I-918 packet, the Supplement B law enforcement certification, the I-192 waiver if inadmissibility is in play, the evidence of the qualifying criminal activity and of your helpfulness. Sanchez Sosa‘s presumption is overruled; its instruction about documenting the petition is what Ibarra-Vega relied on, and it is now the load-bearing part.
Get a bona fide determination and get on the waiting list. USCIS places eligible petitioners who cannot be granted a visa because of the cap on a waiting list. 8 C.F.R. § 214.14(d)(2); 3 USCIS Policy Manual pt. C, chs. 5–6. The Secretary may grant work authorization to a petitioner with a pending bona fide petition. 8 U.S.C. § 1184(p)(6). Ibarra-Vega faulted the respondent for having neither. Evidence that USCIS itself has found your petition bona fide, or has placed you on the waiting list, is the strongest proof of likely success available to you — and it is the closest thing there is to evidence that availability is not purely speculative.
Ask for a date, not a wait. Name a specific period and tie it to something in the record: an expected BFD, a pending Supplement B, a certification request at the agency.
Go after DHS’s position. Under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.18(c)(3) and § 1003.1(l)(3), a motion filed jointly, or one the other party affirmatively does not oppose, must be granted unless the adjudicator articulates “unusual, clearly identified, and supported reasons” for denying it. Neither L. Ramirez nor Ibarra-Vega touched that rule. DHS opposition is what both cases turned on. Non-opposition is still worth asking for, in writing, before the hearing.
In the Ninth Circuit, know the difference between delay and availability. Denial of a continuance is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Ahmed v. Holder, 569 F.3d 1009, 1012 (9th Cir. 2009). And in Malilia v. Holder, 632 F.3d 598, 606 (9th Cir. 2011), the court held that a respondent “should not have to bear the ultimate cost for USCIS’s inefficiencies” — denying an unopposed continuance because USCIS was slow was an abuse of discretion. Malilia remains binding in the Ninth Circuit, though the Fifth Circuit has disagreed with it. Both Ibarra-Vega and L. Ramirez were careful to frame the problem as visa availability rather than USCIS delay, which is precisely the line Malilia sits on. If the holdup in your case is adjudication rather than the cap, that is a different argument and it is still available.
File the relief you actually have. Asylum, cancellation, a 212(h) waiver, whatever the facts support. The U visa should not be the only thing in the file. If your client is detained, the bond question is moving separately and is covered here.
Count the appeal deadline from the decision. Thirty days to the Board. Calendar days.
What a final order now carries
One more reason not to let this drift. The notice at the end of L. Ramirez sets out the consequence of a final removal order: willful failure to depart carries a civil penalty of up to $998 for each day of violation. INA § 274D, 8 U.S.C. § 1324d; 8 C.F.R. § 280.53(b)(14). DHS and DOJ finalized the rule for assessing and collecting those penalties effective October 14, 2026. 91 FR 65390. Reentering after removal is a separate criminal offense. INA § 276(a), 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a).
A pending U visa petition is not a defense to any of that.
If your case is affected
L. Ramirez is three days old, and it applies to the continuance motion you file next month on a petition you filed in 2021. If you have a hearing coming up with a pending I-918, the work of assembling the record and fixing the timeframe has to happen before that hearing, not at it.
If you or a family member is in removal proceedings with a U visa petition pending, call (562) 495-0554 or book a free consultation at blerner.timetap.com. Consultations on removal and detention matters are free.
This article is general information about United States immigration law and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Immigration outcomes depend on the specific facts of each case. Law Offices of Brian D. Lerner, A Professional Corporation, 3233 E. Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. Brian D. Lerner is a Certified Specialist in Immigration and Nationality Law, The State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization.
Esta información también está disponible en español: La prórroga por visa U pendiente ya no se presume.