The Board of Immigration Appeals, sitting en banc, has overruled its own quarter-century-old precedent and held that DHS may serve a notice to appear by regular mail at the most recent address a noncitizen provided to the agency, even if that address was given before the notice to appear itself was issued.
The Board held that its prior decision had created an unworkable paradox by requiring an address to first be validated by a notice to appear's own advisals before it could be used to mail that very notice, an interpretation the Board found inconsistent with the statute's plain text permitting service by regular mail and with nearly all noncitizens' independent, ongoing obligation to keep their address current. Two members dissented, arguing the prior rule was faithful to the statute's specific in absentia provisions and that the majority's own cited statistics, showing dramatically rising numbers of in absentia orders over the past decade, undercut any claim that the old rule was unworkable.
The full text of Matter of Diji can be found here: https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1460146/dl?inline