Administrative Closure

Administrative closure can be requested by either the government or the respondent. It may be offered by the government when they prefer not to take testimony or where there potential issued regarding whether someone should receive asylum or another form of relief. This may occur if there are issues with jurisdiction, timeliness, or other procedural matters. When administratively closed, your case technically remains “pending” with the immigration court and can be re-opened at any time by either party or the judge.

The greatest benefit of administrative closure is that employment authorization remains valid and can continue to be renewed since the underlying application for relief is still pending, although there are no future hearing dates being scheduled and that application will not ever be adjudicated unless things change.

When a case is administratively closed a person remains in removal proceedings. It is essentially just removing the case from the Court’s calendar so there are no more future hearing dates, but the case is still before the Court. If the respondent wants to pursue relief before USCIS they would need to dispose of the case before the Court first since jurisdiction is still vested with the Court. For the same reason the respondent cannot leave the country without “self-deporting.”

DHS used to agree to administrative closure as a matter of PD more often than they do now. Dismissal is now the much preferred way of exercising PD.