Sixth Circuit Rejects Standalone Review of Reasonable-Fear Decisions Without a Challenge to a Final Removal Order

1. Introduction

This published opinion substantially narrows the Sixth Circuit’s previous approach to judicial review of withholding-of-removal and Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) determinations. The court holds that a petition challenging only an immigration judge’s negative reasonable-fear determination does not invoke appellate jurisdiction when the petitioner has not also sought review of a final order of removal.

Bayron Jose Castro-Fuentes, a Honduran citizen subject to a reinstated removal order, challenged both the substance of an immigration judge’s reasonable-fear decision and the procedures surrounding his opportunity to obtain counsel. The respondent, Attorney General Todd Blanche, argued that the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because neither challenge was directed at a final removal order.

The Sixth Circuit accepted that jurisdictional argument without reaching either substantive claim. Most significantly, it concluded that the Supreme Court’s decision in Riley v. Bondi abrogated circuit precedent permitting independent review of withholding-only and CAT orders.

2. Background and Procedural History

The administrative decisions emphasized that Castro-Fuentes had expressed his political views only to a few people, belonged to no political organization, and had not actively protested the Honduran government. He did not know whether that government knew his views and acknowledged that he had not been harmed or threatened. The asylum officer also relied on State Department reporting concerning political detention and disappearances.

Those facts explain the administrative outcome, but they did not determine the appellate decision. The Sixth Circuit dismissed for lack of jurisdiction rather than endorsing the agency’s assessment of the evidence.

3. Summary of the Opinion

The court’s reasoning proceeds through five central propositions:

1. Appellate jurisdiction requires a final removal order. Under the statutory framework, the court reviews final removal orders and qualifying matters presented in conjunction with their review.
2. Protection decisions are legally distinct. An order addressing withholding of removal or CAT protection does not itself decide removability or invalidate an existing removal order.
3. A reasonable-fear determination has no stronger jurisdictional status. Because reasonable-fear screening is a preliminary step toward those protections, a challenge to that screening cannot independently supply jurisdiction.
4. Earlier circuit precedent cannot survive contrary Supreme Court guidance. The court expressly recognized that Riley v. Bondi displaced the contrary rule preserved in Kolov v. Garland.
5. Neither claim could be reached. Without jurisdiction over the petition, the court could not decide the alleged denial of an opportunity to obtain counsel or the correctness of the reasonable-fear finding.

The petition was therefore dismissed, not denied on the merits.

4. Legal Reasoning

A. Jurisdiction turns on the statutory object of review

The court began with 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1) and 28 U.S.C. § 2342, which provide the statutory framework for appellate review of final removal orders. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(47)(A), the relevant order is one concluding that a person is deportable or ordering deportation.

That definition establishes a substantive boundary: not every consequential immigration ruling is a final removal order. A decision may determine whether removal to a particular country can occur without itself deciding whether the person is legally removable from the United States.

Section 1252(b)(9) channels questions arising from removal-related actions into review of a final order. The court treated that provision as requiring a jurisdictional anchor, rather than creating an independent right to appeal every later administrative ruling.

B. Withholding and CAT protection concern destination, not the validity of removal

The court distinguished an order authorizing removal from protection against removal to a particular country. Withholding and CAT protection can restrict the government’s ability to send a person to a specified destination while leaving the underlying removal order valid.

Accordingly, granting or denying those protections does not itself constitute a final removal order. A negative reasonable-fear determination is further removed: it is a screening decision that precedes full consideration of withholding or CAT protection. It cannot acquire an independent jurisdictional status that the ultimate protection decision lacks.

C. An exclusive review procedure is not an independent jurisdictional grant

Section 1252(a)(4) identifies a petition for review filed in accordance with § 1252 as the “sole and exclusive means” for judicial review of CAT claims. Castro-Fuentes’s case required the court to distinguish the proper procedural vehicle from the conditions governing its use.

The court reasoned that naming a petition for review as the exclusive vehicle does not authorize a petition directed solely at a CAT decision. The petition must still satisfy the statutory requirement that jurisdiction rest on review of a final removal order.

D. Ordinary merger principles do not solve the problem

In ordinary appellate litigation, interlocutory rulings often merge into a final judgment and become reviewable with it. The court considered whether a similar principle could connect Castro-Fuentes’s later protection proceedings to his earlier removal order.

It rejected automatic merger because Supreme Court precedent limits the removal order to rulings affecting its validity. Withholding and CAT decisions do not have that effect. Their practical importance therefore does not transform them into components of the removal order.

This does not mean protection claims can never receive judicial review. The opinion recognizes review in conjunction with an appropriate final-order petition. Its objection is to treating the protection decision as an independently appealable final removal order.

E. Reinstatement does not reopen the original order

Under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(5), an earlier removal order may be reinstated after unlawful reentry. The statute provides that the prior order is reinstated from its original date and is not subject to reopening or review.

The Sixth Circuit understood this arrangement as preserving, rather than replacing, the original order. It also emphasized that commencing withholding-only proceedings does not make an otherwise final reinstated order nonfinal.

The court strongly criticized other circuits’ characterization of reinstatement as a new final removal order. Nevertheless, the immediate ground for dismissal was narrower: Castro-Fuentes had not petitioned for review of the reinstatement decision at all. Consequently, the precise jurisdictional treatment of a petition actually challenging reinstatement was not necessary to resolve his petition.

F. Waiver of timeliness did not establish jurisdiction

The Attorney General expressly waived any argument that the petition was untimely. The court nevertheless dismissed because the petition did not challenge the required type of order.

This distinction matters. The disposition was not based on a missed filing deadline. Waiver of that objection could not transform a reasonable-fear decision into a final removal order or supply subject-matter jurisdiction.

5. Precedents Cited and Their Influence

A. Jurisdictional review and the court’s independent responsibility

Doe v. Univ. of Michigan, 78 F.4th 929, 940 (6th Cir. 2023)

This case supplied the standard of review: subject-matter jurisdiction is reviewed de novo. The Sixth Circuit therefore independently decided the legal scope of its authority rather than deferring to the immigration judge.

Kerchen v. Univ. of Mich., 100 F.4th 751, 759 (6th Cir. 2024)

The court invoked this precedent for its independent obligation to assure itself of jurisdiction. Although Castro-Fuentes did not answer the government’s jurisdictional argument, the panel still had to examine the issue rather than treating silence as a sufficient basis for decision.

Henderson ex rel. Henderson v. Shinseki, 562 U.S. 428, 434 (2011)

This Supreme Court decision reinforced that courts must sometimes raise and decide jurisdictional questions the parties overlook or decline to press. It explains why the jurisdictional inquiry precedes consideration of the alleged procedural and substantive errors.

Mata v. Lynch, 576 U.S. 143, 147 (2015)

The court cited this decision to explain the interlocking operation of § 1252(a)(1) and § 2342. Its role was foundational: it located the statutory source of appellate review without expanding the category of reviewable final orders.

B. The controlling Supreme Court framework

Nasrallah v. Barr, 590 U.S. 573 (2020)

This decision supplied two essential distinctions. First, a final removal order determines deportability or orders deportation. Second, a CAT order is separate because it does not affect the removal order’s validity.

The Sixth Circuit also relied on its explanation that a final removal order encompasses rulings affecting that order’s validity. That proposition defeated automatic merger of the later CAT proceedings into the earlier removal order. The court did not read the case as eliminating CAT review altogether, but as requiring the correct jurisdictional setting.

Johnson v. Guzman Chavez, 594 U.S. 523 (2021)

This decision extended the same structural distinction to withholding-only proceedings. Such proceedings determine whether removal to a particular country is permissible; they do not undo the underlying removal order.

It also established that initiating withholding-only proceedings does not render an administratively final reinstated order nonfinal. The Sixth Circuit used that principle to reject the idea that later protection proceedings restart or postpone the finality of the earlier order.

Riley v. Bondi, 606 U.S. 259 (2025)

This was the decisive intervening authority. The Sixth Circuit read its statement that a CAT denial neither constitutes a final removal order nor changes an existing order’s validity or finality as foreclosing standalone jurisdiction.

The opinion also distinguished two aspects of the Supreme Court’s discussion. It cited Justice Thomas’s concurrence concerning the statutory channel for CAT review, while relying on the majority’s final-order analysis as controlling authority.

The court further examined the majority’s suggestion that a court of appeals can postpone review of a final removal order while withholding proceedings remain pending. For the Sixth Circuit, that proposed coordination confirmed that the final-order petition supplies the jurisdictional foundation.

Finally, the court rejected the inference that the Supreme Court’s remand necessarily approved independent jurisdiction over withholding-only decisions. A remand can leave questions unresolved; it does not establish that every possible jurisdictional objection has been rejected.

C. Merger and displacement of circuit precedent

Campfield v. Safelite Grp., Inc., 91 F.4th 401, 409 n.4 (6th Cir. 2024)

This case illustrated ordinary appellate merger: interlocutory rulings may become reviewable upon entry of a final judgment. The court considered that analogy but found the immigration statutes and Supreme Court decisions controlling. General merger principles could not erase the distinction between removal orders and protection decisions.

Kolov v. Garland, 78 F.4th 911 (6th Cir. 2023)

This was the circuit precedent expressly displaced. It had preserved review of Board orders concerning withholding-only and CAT relief. Judge Murphy’s concurrence had already identified tension between that practice and the Supreme Court’s narrower definition of a final removal order.

The present panel concluded that the later Supreme Court decision resolved that tension against standalone review. The departure is therefore explicit, not an unacknowledged narrowing of earlier law: the opinion recognizes abrogation of the contrary holding and the cases relying on it.

Tchankpa v. Ascena Retail Grp., Inc., 951 F.3d 805, 815–16 (6th Cir. 2020)

This case supplied the hierarchy-of-precedent principle permitting the panel to depart from circuit authority: controlling Supreme Court law prevails over inconsistent circuit precedent. The panel thus treated its departure as compelled by superior authority rather than as discretionary reconsideration.

D. Decisions supporting the Sixth Circuit’s approach

Navarrete v. Bondi, 170 F.4th 1214 (9th Cir. 2026)

The court cited this decision for rejecting jurisdiction over a negative reasonable-fear determination or CAT claims independent of a final-order challenge. Its procedural similarity made it especially pertinent: the petition likewise did not challenge reinstatement.

Hayles v. Att'y Gen., 179 F.4th 872 (11th Cir. 2026)

This decision supported the proposition that denial of CAT relief alone cannot sustain appellate jurisdiction. It reinforced the distinction between a protection decision and a final removal order.

Sebastian-Perez v. Blanche, 2026 WL 2590507 (8th Cir. Sept. 2, 2026)

This decision rejected review of an immigration judge’s reasonable-fear determination standing alone. Like the Ninth Circuit decision, it provided a close procedural analogue rather than merely general support concerning CAT relief.

E. Competing reinstatement theories

Laureano v. Att'y Gen., 177 F.4th 453 (3d Cir. 2026), rehearing granted and opinion vacated, 189 F.4th 342 (3d Cir. 2026)

The cited panel opinion treated reinstatement as satisfying the definition of a final removal order because it requires a removability determination and operates to remove the person. Its vacatur is important: the panel opinion was not an operative precedential holding at the time reflected in the supplied opinion.

The Sixth Circuit instead found Judge Matey’s dissent persuasive. That dissent emphasized that reinstatement effectuates an existing order and that the Supreme Court’s remand did not necessarily resolve every jurisdictional question.

Navarro v. Blanche, 186 F.4th 209 (4th Cir. 2026)

This decision supported review through the reinstatement order and read the Supreme Court’s treatment of withholding-only proceedings more permissively. The Sixth Circuit disagreed with both its characterization of reinstatement and its inference from the Supreme Court’s remand.

E.E.V. v. Blanche, 180 F.4th 954 (7th Cir. 2026)

This decision likewise treated reinstatement as a jurisdictional foundation for reviewing later protection proceedings. The Sixth Circuit distinguished it because Castro-Fuentes had not challenged reinstatement and rejected its broader reading of the Supreme Court’s guidance.

Ruiz-Perez v. Garland, 49 F.4th 972, 982 (5th Cir. 2022) (Oldham, J., dissenting)

The court quoted Judge Oldham’s observation that it would be unusual for a reviewable removal order to emerge from a proceeding that is not itself a removal proceeding. This was support from a dissent, not an assertion that the Fifth Circuit’s majority had adopted the Sixth Circuit’s rule.

6. Impact and Limits

A. A significant restriction on standalone petitions

In the Sixth Circuit, petitioners can no longer rely on the displaced precedent to obtain review merely by challenging a withholding-only, CAT, or reasonable-fear decision. The petition must have the jurisdictional connection to a final removal order that the opinion requires.

B. Greater importance of coordinating parallel proceedings

Removal-order finality and protection proceedings may operate on different timelines. The opinion’s discussion of deferred appellate review therefore has practical importance: a qualifying final-order petition may need to remain pending while the agency completes protection proceedings.

That discussion is not a guarantee of jurisdiction in every reinstatement case. In particular, Castro-Fuentes’s petition did not present a direct challenge to reinstatement, and the court expressed strong objections to treating reinstatement as a new removal order.

C. Procedural-rights claims still require a jurisdictional foundation

The due-process characterization of the counsel claim did not overcome the absence of a reviewable final-order challenge. The opinion does not decide whether the immigration judge acted lawfully, what opportunity to obtain counsel was required, or whether any error caused prejudice.

D. The inter-circuit disagreement requires careful characterization

The opinion identifies a substantial disagreement about judicial review after reinstatement. But the cited cases do not all involve identical petitions. Some reject challenges to protection decisions standing alone; others recognize jurisdiction through reinstatement itself. The Sixth Circuit both distinguished those procedural settings and criticized the competing reinstatement theory.

This combination makes the decision consequential beyond reasonable-fear screening while leaving the actual holding tied to a petition that challenged neither the original removal order nor reinstatement.

E. No change to substantive protection standards

The decision does not alter the standards for persecution, torture, political-opinion claims, or reasonable fear. Nor does it approve the agency’s use of the country report or its evaluation of Castro-Fuentes’s political activities. Its significance lies in access to appellate review, not eligibility for protection.

7. Complex Concepts Simplified

Subject-matter jurisdiction

The court’s legal authority to decide a category of dispute. Without it, the court cannot resolve even a potentially serious claim.

Final order of removal

The legally final determination that a person is removable or must be removed—not every later ruling affecting when or where removal may occur.

Reinstatement

Reactivation of an earlier removal order after unlawful reentry. The Sixth Circuit emphasizes that the statute preserves the earlier order rather than reopening it.

Withholding-only proceedings

Proceedings addressing protection against removal to a particular country, rather than reconsidering whether the underlying removal order is valid.

CAT protection

Protection against removal to a country where the applicable legal standard concerning torture is met. Such protection does not itself cancel the removal order.

Reasonable-fear screening

A preliminary assessment of whether a person may proceed to fuller consideration of withholding or CAT protection. It is distinct from the ultimate protection decision.

Merger

The principle that some earlier rulings become reviewable with a final judgment. Here, the court rejected automatic merger of protection decisions into a removal order.

Abrogation

Displacement of an earlier precedent by controlling later authority. The panel concluded that intervening Supreme Court law displaced its circuit’s contrary rule.

Dismissal rather than denial

Dismissal here means the court lacked authority to consider the petition. It does not mean the court found the petitioner’s substantive claims unpersuasive.

8. Conclusion

The central rule is that a negative reasonable-fear determination cannot independently support Sixth Circuit review when the petitioner has not challenged a final removal order. Neither the importance of the protection claim nor an accompanying due-process allegation supplies the missing jurisdictional foundation.

By expressly displacing contrary circuit precedent, the opinion makes the identification and procedural preservation of a reviewable final order decisive. At the same time, its jurisdictional dismissal leaves Castro-Fuentes’s counsel claim and the merits of his fear of return unresolved.