Overview
- An immigration judge denied a request to administratively close Anyi Hernandez-Escobar’s removal proceedings after a June deal between Texas’s attorney general and the Justice Department curtailed the practice.
- U.S. citizen petitions for Hernandez-Escobar and her husband were approved, but because she first entered without authorization she generally cannot adjust status inside the country and would need consular processing abroad.
- A waiver of inadmissibility needed for consular processing is not available to people who remain in active removal proceedings, so the judge’s decision likely forces her to leave the United States to pursue a visa waiver.
- The family is scrambling over custody and care: their 16-month-old daughter could go with Hernandez-Escobar while their seven-year-old son may stay in the U.S. because his biological father reportedly refuses to relinquish parental rights.
- The case highlights how the end of administrative closure affects long-pending family petitions, creates urgent relocation or separation choices for mixed-status households, and has prompted the couple to consider moving to Honduras.