The Ninth Circuit has granted a petition for review where the BIA treated a motion to reopen as a motion to reconsider. The petitioner’s notice of appeal to the BIA was mailed by certified mail before the deadline but was not delivered for forty-two days, and the BIA dismissed the appeal as untimely.
The petitioner then filed a motion to reopen supported by new USPS tracking evidence showing the delay. The Ninth Circuit held that because the motion relied on evidence not before the BIA at the time of dismissal, the BIA was required to treat it as a motion to reopen, subject to the ninety-day deadline. The case was remanded for the BIA to apply the reopening standard to the equitable tolling request.
The full text of Garcia Corrales v. Blanche can be found here: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2026/06/24/24-6467.pdf