Board of Immigration Appeals

The Board of Immigration Appeals is presented as a possible appellate route in the Kingsley family's attempt to avoid removal from the United States. Its significance in the story is conditional: counsel raises an appeal as a next step, but only if he can first persuade a judge to reverse the family's Voluntary Removal, and the proposed route never becomes a confirmed proceeding.

Place in the Immigration Process

The Kingsley family had received a Notice to Appear from the Department of Homeland Security and attended immigration hearings. After their Cancellation of Removal case was denied, Natasha Kingsley's father accepted Voluntary Removal. The family had pursued cancellation on the basis that Natasha's younger brother was a United States citizen, but their lawyer advised that proving the required extreme hardship would be difficult. The family was told that leaving voluntarily would avoid a deportation on their records and preserve some hope of returning.

The Proposed Appeal

When Natasha seeks help, counsel offers to ask a judge to reverse the Voluntary Removal so that she will not have to leave that night. If successful, he says, they can then file an appeal with the Board of Immigration Appeals. The sequence matters: the appeal is described as a future possibility dependent on first changing the immediate removal decision, not as a case already before the Board.

Outcome and Narrative Significance

The judge does not overturn the Voluntary Removal, and Natasha is told that she is still due to be deported that night. The account does not say that an appeal was filed with the Board or that the Board issued a decision. The institution therefore marks the narrow procedural hope offered to Natasha at a moment when she is searching for any remaining way to stay in the United States; the failure of the preliminary effort closes that proposed avenue before it can be tested.