Isidro Ramos-Ramos v. Todd Blanche

── Isidro Ramos-Ramos v. Todd Blanche ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Date: June 04, 2026 Category: General NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 26a0254n.06 Case No. 25-3102 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Jun 04, 2026 ) KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk ISIDRO RAMOS-RAMOS, ) Petitioner, ) ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW v. ) FROM THE UNITED STATES ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION TODD BLANCHE, Acting U.S. Attorney ) APPEALS General, ) Respondent. ) OPINION Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; BOGGS and RITZ, Circuit Judges. SUTTON, Chief Judge. The Board of Immigration Appeals rejected Isidro Ramos- Ramos’s application for cancellation of removal. We deny his petition for review. Ramos is a Mexican citizen. His family entered the United States without authorization in approximately 1995, when he was four years old. They returned to Mexico in 1997 and re-entered the United States without authorization in 2000. Ramos last went to Mexico in 2006 or 2007 to visit his family, and in 2008 returned without authorization. Since at least 2009, he has lived in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife, Maria Guadalupe Ochoa Gonzalez, who also lacks legal status. In that time, they’ve had three daughters, now 14, 10, and 5 years old. No party to this case disputes the American citizenship of their three children. Ramos works in construction and serves as the family’s main breadwinner while Ochoa Gonzalez looks after their children, though she has held outside-the-home jobs in the past. No. 25-3102, Ramos-Ramos v. Blanche The Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against Ramos in 2012. Ramos conceded his removability and applied for cancellation of removal based on hardship to his three daughters. Ramos argued that his removal would cause them emotional and economic harm. He also predicted that his removal would create challenges for his wife, which in turn would impair her ability to care for their children. The apparent premise of his application is that his family does not plan to return with him to Mexico. Unpersuaded, an immigration judge denied the application in 2022. She found that Ramos was ineligible for cancellation of removal because he did not establish exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to his three citizen daughters. Ramos appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which agreed with the immigration judge and rejected his appeal. The Attorney General may cancel an alien’s removal if the alien establishes (1) continuous physical presence in the United States for 10 years, (2) “good moral character,” (3) the absence of certain convictions, and (4) proof that removal would “result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to a spouse, parent, or child who is an American citizen or a legal permanent resident. 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1). Because the parties disagree over just one feature of this test—would Ramos’s removal “result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to his daughters?—we need to elaborate only on that requirement. The hardship imperative creates a “high bar.” Baltazar Us v. Blanche, 174 F.4th 509, 513 (6th Cir. 2026). It demands evidence of a hardship “significantly different from or greater than the hardship that a deported alien’s family normall