The Board of Immigration Appeals has sustained an appeal filed by a Cuban respondent whose entire application for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection was deemed abandoned after she failed to pay the new annual asylum fee created by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act by the immigration judge's deadline.
The Board held that the annual asylum fee is a mandatory, non-waivable eligibility requirement, and that an immigration judge may properly pretermit or deem abandoned an asylum application for nonpayment. But the Board held that the statute's plain language, referring only to "an application for asylum," does not extend the fee requirement or its consequences to applications for statutory withholding of removal or CAT protection, notwithstanding DHS's argument that the regulatory definition of "asylum application" already encompasses those forms of relief. The Board remanded for the immigration judge to consider the respondent's withholding and CAT claims on the merits.
The full text of Matter of L-F-R- can be found here: https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1454066/dl?inline