Santos Barahona-Benitez v. Todd Blanche

── Santos Barahona-Benitez v. Todd Blanche ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Date: June 01, 2026 Category: General USCA4 Appeal: 25-1113 Doc: 36 Filed: 06/01/2026 Pg: 1 of 4 UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 25-1113 SANTOS ESTEBAN BARAHONA-BENITEZ, Petitioner, v. TODD BLANCHE, Acting Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Submitted: March 12, 2026 Decided: June 1, 2026 Before DIAZ, Chief Judge, GREGORY, and BENJAMIN, Circuit Judges. Vacated and remanded by unpublished opinion. Judge Gregory wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge Diaz and Judge Benjamin joined. ON BRIEF: Nash Fayad, FAYAD LAW, P.C., Richmond, Virginia, for Petitioner. Yaakov M. Roth, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Walter Bocchini, Gregory M. Kelch, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. USCA4 Appeal: 25-1113 Doc: 36 Filed: 06/01/2026 Pg: 2 of 4 GREGORY, Circuit Judge: Petitioner, Santos Barahona-Benitez, appeals the Board of Immigration Appeals’s (“BIA”) decision on both procedural and substantive grounds. We find that the BIA erred as a matter of law when denying Petitioner’s motion to accept his late filing. We do not reach the substantive issues and instead vacate and remand to the BIA to reconsider Petitioner’s appeal with full briefing. *** Mr. Barahona-Benitez is from El Salvador. In November 2015, gang members assaulted him and his family with guns, leaving them injured, and threatening to return in five days to kill him if he did not pay $12,000. His relatives had been killed by the same gang in similar situations. Mr. Barahona-Benitez fled to the U.S., where he sought asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. The immigration judge denied his requests. Mr. Barahona-Benitez appealed to the BIA on August 29, 2022. He filed a timely brief on April 19, 2024. However, on April 26, 2024, three days after the April 23 due date for briefing, the BIA sent Petitioner a notice that his brief had been rejected because the attorney’s address on the brief did not match the attorney’s address in the eRegistry. Specifically, the brief listed counsel’s Richmond office address, whereas the eRegistry contained counsel’s Fairfax office address. Because the BIA issued the rejection notice after the briefing deadline, Mr. Barahona-Benitez could not timely submit a corrected brief. He moved to file a late brief, which the BIA denied. Without the benefit of Petitioner’s briefing, the BIA affirmed the immigration judge’s decision on January 8, 2025, in a short two-page opinion. 2 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1113 Doc: 36 Filed: 06/01/2026 Pg: 3 of 4 This Court reviews the BIA’s procedural decisions for abuse of discretion and will uphold a decision unless it was “arbitrary, irrational, or contrary to law.” Wanrong Lin v. Holder, 771 F.3d 177, 182 (4th Cir. 2014) (citation modified); see Portillo Flores v. Garland, 3 F.4th 615, 626 (4th Cir. 2021). “The BIA abuses its discretion if it fails to offer a reasoned explanation for its decision, or if it distorts or disregards important aspects of the applic