Asylum Seekers Who Travel Home on Advance Parole Forfeit Torture Convention Protection Too, Immigration Appeals Board Rules

Asylum seekers who use advance parole to visit the country they say they fled now risk losing every form of protection they asked for, not just asylum. In Matter of M-R-I-, 30 I&N Dec. 137, decided October 7, 2026, the Board of Immigration Appeals held that such a trip abandons the whole application, including withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture, unless the applicant shows compelling reasons for going back.

The rule behind the decision is not new. Federal regulations at 8 C.F.R. § 208.8(b), which governs asylum officers, and its twin at § 1208.8(b) for immigration judges, presume that an applicant who returns to the country of claimed persecution on advance parole has abandoned the application. What the Board added is scope and finality. Because the regulation speaks of a single “application” and of the “country of claimed persecution” rather than the type of harm feared, the panel read it to sweep in the torture claim as well. It then held that the applicant could not fall back on deferral of removal under the Torture Convention, normally the last protection left to people barred from everything else, because he had abandoned the claim on which deferral rests.

The facts show how little room “compelling reasons” leaves. The respondent, a citizen of Nepal, received advance parole twice while his case was pending. He spent about two months in Nepal in 2016 and about two months in India in 2018, where he met relatives who traveled to see him. He said he went home because he missed his family and worried about his mother’s health after the 2015 earthquake. The immigration judge found those events too distant from the trip, and the Board agreed, pointing out that the India visit showed he could see family without entering Nepal. The Board did not define compelling reasons, but the decision suggests an applicant must tie the trip to a specific, current need and explain why it could not be met somewhere safer.

A second holding will interest practitioners. The respondent argued that DHS had waived the abandonment issue by filing its closing argument late and unsigned. The Board rejected that, holding that a mandatory bar is “governed by the evidentiary record,” not by the argument of counsel, and that the burden of explaining the trip stays with the applicant either way.

In practical terms, an advance parole document is permission to return to the United States, not a judgment that the trip is safe for the asylum claim. Asylum officers apply a parallel regulation and, under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(g), are bound by Board precedents, so the reading in M-R-I- is likely to carry over to cases still pending with an asylum office. People who already made such a trip and have not yet been asked about it should expect the question, and the record of why they went will matter more than any argument made later. The decision came two days before the Board’s broader Matter of B-S-A-N- ruling directing judges to generally deny asylum to citizens of 40 named democracies, part of what, in our reading, is a run of precedents narrowing relief in immigration court.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources: Matter of M-R-I-, 30 I&N Dec. 137 (BIA 2026); 8 C.F.R. § 208.8; 8 C.F.R. § 1208.8; 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(g); Matter of B-S-A-N-, 30 I&N Dec. 145 (BIA 2026).

About the Author

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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