The Board of Immigration Appeals has sustained DHS's appeal from a $7,500 bond grant to a Mexican respondent who overstayed a visitor visa, holding that the immigration judge improperly relied on speculative eligibility for asylum, cancellation of removal, and adjustment of status to offset flight risk.
The Board held that flight risk encompasses not just whether a respondent will appear at hearings but whether he will comply with an eventual removal order, and that an alien's incentive to prolong proceedings by filing for relief does not itself show he will comply with an adverse final order. Because the immigration judge's findings that the respondent was merely "potentially" eligible for relief were unsupported by the record, the Board vacated the bond grant and remanded for further fact-finding.
The full text of Matter of A-L-S- can be found here: https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1454391/dl?inline