The Seventh Circuit has denied the government's motions to dismiss petitions for review filed by two noncitizens whose withholding-only proceedings remain pending, rejecting new jurisdictional arguments raised in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Riley v. Bondi. One petitioner is a Salvadoran woman whose reinstated removal order has been pending review for nearly a decade; the other is a Mexican woman convicted of theft who is contesting a final administrative removal order.
The Court held that a reinstatement order remains a final order of removal subject to judicial review, reaffirming decades of circuit precedent and rejecting the government's argument that reinstatement orders are unreviewable altogether. The Court also held that the petitions were not filed too early, since Riley itself endorsed the practice of filing placeholder petitions while withholding-only proceedings remain pending. Finally, the Court concluded that the thirty-day filing deadline is subject to equitable tolling and that both petitioners reasonably relied on then-binding circuit precedent in timing their filings, making tolling appropriate here.
The full text of E.E.V. v. Blanche can be found here: https://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/OpinionsWeb/processWebInputExternal.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2026/D07-06/C:25-2268:J:Hamilton:aut:T:op:N:3568944:S:0