Pereira v. Sessions

Wescley Fonseca Pereira, a Brazilian citizen, overstayed his visa and was served a Notice to Appear (NTA) that did not specify the time or date of his removal hearing. After he failed to appear at a later scheduled hearing, he was ordered removed in absentia. Pereira sought cancellation of removal, but an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that the NTA stopped his accrual of continuous physical presence under the stop-time rule, making him ineligible for relief. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari to resolve a circuit split. On June 21, 2018, the Court held that a notice that fails to inform the alien of the time and place of the hearing does not constitute a valid NTA under 8 U.S.C. §1229(a) and therefore does not trigger the stop-time rule.

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of Pereira, holding that a putative Notice to Appear that fails to designate the specific time or place of the removal hearing is not a "notice to appear under section 1229(a)" and thus does not trigger the stop-time rule. The judgment of the First Circuit was reversed and the case remanded.

Whether a Notice to Appear that does not specify the time and place of a removal hearing triggers the stop-time rule under 8 U.S.C. §1229b(d)(1), thereby cutting off an alien's continuous physical presence for cancellation of removal purposes.

The decision significantly affected U.S. immigration procedure by invalidating the common practice of issuing NTAs without hearing details. It allowed many long-term residents previously barred by the stop-time rule to apply for cancellation of removal, leading to the reopening of thousands of cases and prompting the Department of Homeland Security to revise its NTA issuance policies to include hearing times and dates.