Categorical Dangerousness After Matter of Kamalov: Preserving Bond Records and the Fifth Circuit's Unsettled Constitutional Floor

On July 17, 2026, a Board of Immigration Appeals panel decided Matter of Kamalov, 30 I&N Dec. 34 (BIA 2026), vacating an immigration judge’s grant of a $15,000 bond and ordering a Kyrgyz F-1 student detained without bond based on unadjudicated conduct — street racing, resisting arrest without injury, driving on a suspended license, and possession of a cell phone in a detention facility. The Attorney General designated the decision as binding precedent on September 2, 2026. This Article examines Kamalov on its own terms: a pro se, unbriefed panel disposition that nonetheless now governs every INA § 236(a) bond hearing in the country. Part I lays out the decision’s actual holding and reasoning. Part II identifies the existing body of BIA bond precedent that remains available to respondents to build a record capable of surviving Board review notwithstanding Kamalov’s categorical language. Part III turns to the Fifth Circuit specifically, mapping the current circuit split on the constitutional allocation of the burden of proof in § 236(a) bond hearings, explaining why the Fifth Circuit’s own precedent makes the broadest version of that argument a difficult one in this circuit, and identifying the narrower, more Fifth-Circuit-compatible constitutional theories — grounded in United States v. Salerno, Foucha v. Louisiana, and the currently pending en banc reconsideration of Sosnava-Rodriguez v. Ortega — that remain genuinely available to respondents. Part IV offers practice recommendations for hearings conducted in the shadow of this decision.

Introduction

Matter of Kamalov arrived as the fourth in a rapid succession of precedential BIA decisions issued over a two-week period in the summer of 2026, alongside Matter of DIJI, Matter of A-E-V-M-, and Matter of S-K-E-. Read together, these decisions reflect a deliberate tightening of the standards immigration judges apply across bond, asylum, and removal-enforcement contexts. Kamalov is, on its facts, a narrow decision: it resolves a single DHS appeal from a single bond grant, on a record the respondent — proceeding pro se — never contested. But its designation as precedent under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(g)(3) means that narrow factual disposition now supplies the operative legal standard for dangerousness determinations under INA § 236(a) nationwide.

This Article’s purpose is practical rather than polemical. It does not principally argue that Kamalov was wrongly decided as a matter of administrative law, though the procedural posture in which it was decided — a wholly one-sided record, later elevated to precedent by a subsequent Attorney General order — is itself worth flagging to any tribunal asked to extend its reasoning. Its purpose is to identify what remains available to a respondent’s counsel who must now prepare for a bond hearing, or defend a bond grant on appeal, in a legal environment where Kamalov controls.

I. Matter of Kamalov: The Decision

A. Facts and Procedural History

The respondent, a native and citizen of Kyrgyzstan, was admitted to the United States in 2024 on an F-1 student visa. On February 13, 2026, he was stopped by police for a traffic violation. The stop revealed that he was driving on a license that had been suspended in 2025 following a street racing violation. During the arrest, he attempted to elude the officers’ grasp and, in doing so, bent one officer’s finger without causing injury. At the county jail, he took his cell phone from the officer’s side of the detention area after being told he could not keep it, resulting in an additional arrest for possession of contraband.

The state court released the respondent on his own recognizance. The immigration judge held a § 236(a) bond hearing and, in a March 23, 2026 memorandum, set bond at $15,000, finding that the respondent did not present a danger to persons or property and that any flight risk could be mitigated by the bond amount. DHS appealed. The respondent, proceeding pro se, did not respond. The Board — a panel of Deputy Chief Appellate Immigration Judge Radics and Appellate Immigration Judges Mahtabfar and Hansell — sustained DHS’s appeal on a wholly unopposed record.

B. The Board’s Reasoning

The Board reviewed the dangerousness determination de novo as a question of judgment, reviewing the underlying factual findings only for clear error. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(3)(i)–(ii); see Matter of Beltrand-Rodriguez, 29 I&N Dec. 76, 77 (BIA 2025). It held that the respondent — who bears the burden of proving he is not a danger to persons or property, see Matter of Choc-Tut, 29 I&N Dec. 48, 49 (BIA 2025) — failed to carry that burden for three independent reasons:

1. Street racing and resisting arrest are categorically “inherently dangerous activities” that “evince a disregard for the safety of others and the laws of the United States,” citing the broad discretion immigration judges have to consider conduct beyond criminal convictions under Matter of Guerra, 24 I&N Dec. 37, 39–41 (BIA 2006). The absence of injury to the arresting officer “does not change the seriousness of the charge itself.”
2. State-court release on personal recognizance does not require deference. Citing Matter of Choc-Tut, 29 I&N Dec. at 50, the Board reiterated that an immigration judge “may consider” a state court’s dangerousness and bail determinations but owes them no deference in the separate immigration bond context.
3. “A lot to lose” reasoning is speculative and can be rebutted by the respondent’s own conduct. The immigration judge’s finding that the respondent would not reoffend because he had significant equities at stake was rejected as unsupported by specific evidence and undermined by the fact that the respondent’s own actions had already carried both criminal and immigration consequences before he committed them. The Board cited Matter of Siniauskas, 27 I&N Dec. 207, 210 (BIA 2018), for the proposition that favorable equities must affirmatively be shown to mitigate dangerousness — general assertions do not suffice.

Because a finding of future dangerousness is independently dispositive of bond eligibility under Matter of Martinez-Rodriguez, 29 I&N Dec. 656, 657 (BIA 2026), the Board did not reach the flight-risk analysis at all.

C. What Makes This Decision Structurally Unusual

Two features of Kamalov are worth stating plainly because they will matter to how the decision is argued going forward. First, the respondent was unrepresented at every stage — before the immigration judge, before the Board, and in failing to respond to DHS’s appeal — meaning the precedent that now binds every immigration judge in the country was shaped entirely by one side’s characterization of the facts and the law, without any adversarial testing. Second, the Board’s July 2026 panel decision did not become binding precedent through the Board’s ordinary en banc precedentdesignation process; it became precedent because the Attorney General designated it as such under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(g)(3) more than six weeks after it was issued. Neither fact makes Kamalov any less binding today. Both facts are legitimate grounds for a respondent’s counsel to argue, in briefing before an immigration judge or the Board, that Kamalov’s categorical language should be read narrowly and applied only where the specific facts genuinely mirror its own — a single-incident record with no responsive advocacy at all — rather than extended reflexively to every arrest involving traffic offenses or non-injurious resistance.

II. Building a Bond Record That Distinguishes Kamalov: The Available

BIA Precedent

Kamalov does not repeal the pre-existing multi-factor framework that has governed § 236(a) bond determinations for decades. It layers a categorical characterization of certain conduct onto that framework. Respondents’ counsel retain several tools within existing BIA precedent to prevent an unfavorable bond grant from being vacated on appeal, or to win a contested hearing in the first instance.

A. The Guerra Framework Remains Individualized and Multi-Factor

Kamalov itself relies on Matter of Guerra for the proposition that immigration judges may consider non-conviction conduct — it does not hold that non-conviction conduct is conclusive, or that the traditional multi-factor balancing test is displaced. The traditional factors remain: employment history, length of residence in the community, family ties (particularly ties conferring immigration benefits), record of court appearance, criminal and immigration history, and eligibility for relief from removal. See Matter of Guerra, 24 I&N Dec. at 40; Matter of Andrade, 19 I&N Dec. 488, 490 (BIA 1987); Matter of Shaw, 17 I&N Dec. 177, 178–79 (BIA 1979); Matter of Patel, 15 I&N Dec. 666, 667 (BIA 1979); Matter of San Martin, 15 I&N Dec. 167, 169 (BIA 1974). Counsel should affirmatively develop each of these factors in the record — not as a substitute for addressing the dangerousness conduct directly, but because Kamalov nowhere holds that a strong showing on the traditional factors is irrelevant once dangerousness-adjacent conduct appears in the record. An immigration judge who expressly weighs the full Guerra/Andrade factor set, and articulates why the respondent’s specific circumstances differ from the bare, single-incident record in Kamalov, builds a decision that rests on individualized findings rather than the kind of categorical shorthand the Board used in Kamalov itself.

B. Attack the Reliability of the Underlying Conduct, Not Just Its Characterization

Kamalov treated the police narrative of the respondent’s arrest as essentially undisputed — because it was undisputed; the respondent never appeared to contest it. That is the single most exploitable feature of the decision for future cases. Nothing in Kamalov, Guerra, or Choc-Tut requires an immigration judge to accept a police report’s characterization of disputed events as true. Persuasive authority from outside the Fifth Circuit is instructive on this point even though it is not binding: in Padmore v. Holder, 609 F.3d 62, 69–70 (2d Cir. 2010), the Second Circuit held that an immigration judge “may not base its decision denying relief upon the assumption that the facts contained in [charging or arrest] documents are true” without more. Counsel should build the bond record affirmatively around this principle: declarations from the respondent and any percipient witnesses, the specific disposition (or lack of one) in the underlying state case, exculpatory or mitigating context, and — where available — evidence contradicting or narrowing the police narrative. An immigration judge’s decision that expressly finds specific facts about the underlying conduct, rather than adopting the arrest report’s characterization wholesale, stands on a materially different footing than the Kamalov panel’s unopposed acceptance of DHS’s account.

C. Build the Equities Record With Specificity, Not Generality

Kamalov forecloses “has a lot to lose” as a freestanding rationale, but it does so because that rationale was speculative and untethered to specific evidence — not because equities are categorically irrelevant. Matter of Siniauskas, 27 I&N Dec. at 210, already required that favorable equities be affirmatively shown to mitigate dangerousness, and Kamalov applies rather than expands that requirement. The corrective is evidentiary specificity: documented rehabilitative steps, counseling or treatment records where relevant, declarations from employers, professors, or community members addressing the respondent’s conduct and character with particularity, and — critically — a showing of what has specifically changed since the conduct at issue, rather than an unadorned assertion that the respondent has too much to lose to reoffend.

D. Use Choc-Tut Affirmatively, Not Defensively

Choc-Tut holds that state court custody decisions do not bind immigration judges, but it also holds that such decisions remain relevant. Counsel should not treat a favorable state disposition (dismissal, acquittal, diversion, or a low-bail finding reflecting the state court’s own assessment of the evidence) as dispositive, but should submit it together with the specific reasoning behind it — the prosecutor’s stated basis for a dismissal, a suppression ruling, or a magistrate’s specific findings — so that the immigration judge has more than a bare disposition to weigh. A state court record that explains why the underlying conduct was less serious than the arrest report suggests does real work under Choc-Tut’s own “relevant, though not binding” standard.

E. Preserve the Distinction Kamalov Itself Draws

Kamalov expressly distinguishes mandatory detention under INA § 236(c) and confirms it has no bearing on that framework. It also arose entirely within the discretionary § 236(a) posture, and its holding is explicitly conditioned on that respondent’s specific, cumulative conduct. Counsel representing a respondent with a single, nonrecurring incident — as opposed to the pattern reflected in Kamalov (a street racing suspension, a subsequent arrest for driving on that suspension, resistance during the arrest, and a separate contraband offense committed in custody) — has a genuine fac- tual basis to argue that Kamalov’s “aggregation of a disregard for the laws” reasoning does not extend to an isolated event.

III. The Fifth Circuit’s Constitutional Landscape

The most sophisticated line of attack on Kamalov is not administrative but constitutional: does the Due Process Clause permit an immigration judge to order civil detention based on unadjudicated, non-injurious conduct without requiring the government to prove dangerousness by clear and convincing evidence? This Part addresses that question specifically as it stands in the Fifth Circuit, where — candor requires saying so at the outset — the broadest version of the argument faces real headwinds.

A. The National Circuit Split on Burden Allocation

The Supreme Court has twice declined to resolve the underlying constitutional question, holding only as a matter of statutory interpretation that the INA does not itself require periodic bond hearings with the government bearing the burden. See Jennings v. Rodriguez, 138 S. Ct. 830 (2018) (§§ 1225(b), 1226(c)); Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez, 596 U.S. 573 (2022) (§ 1231(a)(6)). Both decisions expressly left the constitutional avoidance question for the courts of appeals to resolve in the first instance, and the circuits have since divided:

• First and Second Circuits have held that prolonged detention under § 1226(a) requires a further bond hearing at which the government bears the burden of proving dangerousness or flight risk by clear and convincing evidence. Hernandez-Lara v. Lyons, 10 F.4th 19, 28–33, 39–41 (1st Cir. 2021) (applying Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976)); Velasco Lopez v. Decker, 978 F.3d 842, 851–52 (2d Cir. 2020).
• Fourth and Ninth Circuits, by contrast, have declined to impose a categorical burden-shift requirement. Miranda v. Garland, 34 F.4th 338, 365 (4th Cir. 2022) (relying on Demore v. Kim, 538 U.S. 510 (2003), for the proposition that noncitizens facing removal are due a different quantum of process than the ordinary citizen); Rodriguez Diaz v. Garland, 53 F.4th 1189 (9th Cir. 2022) (holding, on the individualized record before it, that due process did not require a second bond hearing with a government burden), reh’g en banc denied, 2023 WL 6800225 (9th Cir. Oct. 12, 2023) (Paez, J., joined by ten judges, dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc, and noting the panel’s holding conflicts with the circuit’s own earlier decision in Singh v. Holder, 638 F.3d 1196 (9th Cir. 2011)).

B. The Fifth Circuit Has Already Been Unreceptive to the Categorical Version

of This Argument

Practitioners bringing this fight to the Fifth Circuit should not overstate their odds. The Fifth Circuit has itself addressed due process challenges to detention under the INA and has not adopted the First and Second Circuits’ burden-shifting approach for discretionary § 1226(a) detention. See Rodriguez v. Garland, 15 F.4th 351, 355– 56 (5th Cir. 2021), reh’g en banc denied, 31 F.4th 935 (5th Cir. 2022). A broad argument asking a Fifth Circuit panel to adopt Hernandez-Lara’s categorical rule — that the government must always bear a clear-and-convincing burden once § 1226(a) detention becomes prolonged — is asking the panel to depart from existing circuit precedent, something only the en banc court could do. Counsel should calibrate the framing of any constitutional challenge accordingly: a categorical burden-shift theory is a weak vehicle in this circuit; a narrower, as-applied theory is not.

C. Narrower, Fifth-Circuit-Compatible Constitutional Arguments

Three arguments do not require a Fifth Circuit panel to overrule its own precedent, and each has genuine purchase against the specific reasoning Kamalov employs.

1. The Salerno floor: categorical labels without narrow, demonstrable criteria. United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739 (1987), is the foundational case permitting preventive detention on dangerousness grounds consistent with due process — but the Supreme Court’s approval rested on specific features of the Bail Reform Act that are conspicuously more demanding than the framework Kamalov applies: the statute was “narrowly focused on a particularly acute problem,” applied to “specific, narrowly defined circumstances,” required the government to prove dangerousness by clear and convincing evidence at a full adversarial hearing before a neutral decisionmaker, and imposed strict time limits on detention. Id. at 747–52. An argument built on Salerno does not ask the Fifth Circuit to hold that § 1226(a) must mirror the Bail Reform Act’s procedures wholesale (which Rodriguez v. Garland forecloses); it asks the court to recognize an outer limit — that treating conduct as broad and heterogeneous as “street racing” and “non-injurious resistance to a lawful arrest” as per se “inherently dangerous,” without any individualized finding connecting that specific conduct to a genuine risk of future harm to a specific class of victims, stretches the dangerousness inquiry past the “narrow and demonstrable” categories Salerno approved and toward the kind of generalized, status-based detention due process forbids.
2. Foucha’s requirement of current, individualized, reliable evidence. Foucha v. Louisiana, 504 U.S. 71 (1992), held that continued civil confinement premised on “dangerousness” cannot rest on stale or generalized characterization; it requires clear and convincing, individualized, and current evidence of dangerousness — there, the Court rejected continued confinement of an insanity acquittee based on an antisocial personality diagnosis untethered to a showing of ongoing mental illness. The analogy to a § 236(a) bond hearing is imperfect — Foucha arose in the criminal civilcommitment context — but its core principle transfers: due process does not permit detention on a dangerousness label divorced from individualized, reliable, and current proof of the underlying conduct’s actual bearing on future risk. An as-applied challenge built on Foucha argues that a bare, one-sided arrest narrative — accepted at face value, as it was in Kamalov itself — cannot supply that constitutional minimum, particularly where the respondent has affirmatively contested the narrative and offered a competing evidentiary account.
3. The Mathews fundamental-fairness/reliability strand, distinct from the burden-allocation strand. Rodriguez v. Garland forecloses the argument that the Fifth Circuit must categorically shift the burden of proof to the government. It does not foreclose the distinct argument that the process by which an immigration judge finds the underlying facts must satisfy Mathews’s “risk of erroneous deprivation” prong. An immigration judge who treats an unadjudicated police narrative as conclusively true, without permitting the respondent a meaningful opportunity to contest the specific facts alleged, creates exactly the kind of elevated error risk Mathews is designed to guard against — regardless of which party formally bears the burden of proof. This argument asks the court to police the reliability of the fact-finding process itself, not to reallocate the burden, and it is far more consistent with existing Fifth Circuit precedent than the categorical theory Rodriguez v. Garland already rejected.

D. The Fifth Circuit’s Due Process Jurisprudence on Detention Is Currently,

Genuinely Unsettled

Practitioners should also be aware that the Fifth Circuit’s engagement with individualized-hearing and burden questions in the detention context is very much a live fight as of this writing, even though it arises in a different statutory posture than Kamalov. In February 2026, the Fifth Circuit decided Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi, addressing the framework governing mandatory detention of “applicants for admission” under INA § 1225(b)(2). On July 2, 2026, a divided Fifth Circuit panel held in Sosnava-Rodriguez v. Ortega, by a 2–1 vote, that due process requires an individualized custody hearing within ninety days of detention, with the burden on the government to identify an “articulable threat” or genuine flight risk — a formulation considerably more protective than Kamalov’s categorical “inherently dangerous activity” approach. The full Fifth Circuit granted rehearing en banc on July 14, 2026, which under circuit practice automatically vacated the panel decision; briefing before the en banc court was scheduled to conclude in September 2026.

Two things follow. First, Sosnava-Rodriguez is not currently good law and cannot be cited as binding precedent; it has been vacated pending en banc review, and its ultimate disposition is unknown as of this writing. Second, and more significantly for long-term strategy, its existence demonstrates that the Fifth Circuit is actively and seriously reconsidering exactly the individualized-hearing and burden-allocation questions this Article addresses — in a related detention context — barely five years after Rodriguez v. Garland. Counsel litigating Kamalov-based detentions in the Fifth Circuit should monitor the en banc disposition in Sosnava-Rodriguez closely; whatever standard the en banc court ultimately adopts for individualized findings and burden allocation in the § 1225(b)(2) context will shape, even if it does not directly control, how the same court is likely to receive as-applied challenges to categorical dangerousness findings under § 1226(a).

E. Zadvydas and Demore Provide Limited, Not Decisive, Assistance

Two frequently cited Supreme Court detention cases deserve a brief note of caution. Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001), addresses post-removal-order detention under § 1231(a)(6) and its six-month presumptive reasonableness period does not directly govern pre-order discretionary detention under § 1226(a); it is useful for its general due process framing but should not be cited as though it controls the Kamalov posture. Demore v. Kim, 538 U.S. 510 (2003), upheld mandatory detention under § 1226(c) as constitutional given its limited duration, but Justice Kennedy’s separate concurrence — which several circuits, including in the Hernandez-Lara and Velasco Lopez line, have relied upon — flagged that due process may require an individualized hearing where detention becomes significantly prolonged. Both cases are useful background; neither is a substitute for the sharper, more targeted arguments identified above.

IV. Practice Recommendations

1. Do not rely on a categorical burden-shift argument as the primary theory in Fifth Circuit litigation. Rodriguez v. Garland makes that a difficult argument for a three-judge panel to accept. Frame the constitutional challenge around the reliability of the fact-finding process and the Salerno/Foucha individualized-evidence floor instead.
2. Build the administrative record to contest the underlying conduct, not merely its legal characterization. The single most consequential fact about Kamalov is that its “inherently dangerous activity” characterization was never tested. Declarations, exculpatory context, and specific state-court findings — submitted at the immigration-judge level — create the individualized record that both distinguishes Kamalov administratively and supports a Foucha-style constitutional challenge if it becomes necessary.
3. Develop the full Guerra/Andrade factor set affirmatively, and ask the immigration judge to make specific, individualized findings connecting (or declining to connect) the respondent’s conduct to Kamalov’s categorical language, rather than allowing the decision to rest on the bare fact that similar conduct types appear in the respondent’s record.
4. Treat equities showings as an evidentiary project, not an argument. General assertions about what a respondent has to lose will not survive Kamalov or Siniauskas. Documented, specific, and current evidence of changed circumstances will.
5. Monitor Sosnava-Rodriguez v. Ortega closely. The en banc Fifth Circuit’s eventual resolution of that case — expected following September 2026 briefing — will meaningfully inform, even though it will not directly control, the viability of individualized-hearing and reliability-based challenges to Kamalov in this circuit.
6. Preserve federal habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 as an independent remedy where detention following a Kamalov-based denial becomes prolonged, keeping in mind that the constitutional theories most likely to succeed in this circuit are the narrower, as-applied theories described in Part III.C, not the categorical burden-shift theory Rodriguez v. Garland already forecloses.

Conclusion

Matter of Kamalov is a significant and, for the moment, binding statement of BIA bond doctrine — but it is also a decision built on an unusually thin record, extended to nationwide precedential effect by an Attorney General designation issued weeks after the fact. Neither its bond-factor framework nor the Fifth Circuit’s constitutional landscape actually forecloses careful advocacy. The existing multi-factor BIA precedent survives Kamalov and gives immigration judges a path to individualized findings that distinguish this decision on its own terms. And while the Fifth Circuit’s own precedent forecloses the broadest constitutional argument — a categorical government burdenshift under Mathews — it leaves open narrower, evidence-focused theories grounded in Salerno and Foucha that speak directly to what actually happened in Kamalov: a categorical dangerousness label applied to an unadjudicated, unopposed police narrative. Practitioners who build their records and their constitutional arguments around that distinction, rather than around a wholesale attack on § 236(a)’s existing burden allocation, will be arguing on the ground this circuit is actually prepared to move.

Texas, where his practice focuses on removal defense, custody and bond litigation, and consular processing along the U.S.–Mexico border.

1. Statutes and Regulations - INA § 236(a), 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) - INA § 236(c), 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c) - INA § 225(b)(2), 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2) - INA § 241(a)(6), 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6)
2. - 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(3)(i)–(ii) - 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(g)(3) - 28 U.S.C. § 2241
3. BIA Precedent - Matter of Kamalov, 30 I&N Dec. 34 (BIA 2026) - Matter of A-E-V-M-, 30 I&N Dec. 20 (BIA 2026) - Matter of Choc-Tut, 29 I&N Dec. 48 (BIA 2025) - Matter of Beltrand-Rodriguez, 29 I&N Dec. 76 (BIA 2025) - Matter of Z-N-L-, 29 I&N Dec. 511 (BIA 2026) - Matter of Martinez-Rodriguez, 29 I&N Dec. 656 (BIA 2026) - Matter of Guerra, 24 I&N Dec. 37 (BIA 2006) - Matter of Siniauskas, 27 I&N Dec. 207 (BIA 2018) - Matter of R-A-V-P-, 27 I&N Dec. 803 (BIA 2020) - Matter of Andrade, 19 I&N Dec. 488 (BIA 1987) - Matter of Shaw, 17 I&N Dec. 177 (BIA 1979) - Matter of Patel, 15 I&N Dec. 666 (BIA 1979) - Matter of San Martin, 15 I&N Dec. 167 (BIA 1974) - Matter of D-J-, 23 I&N Dec. 572 (A.G. 2003)
4. Supreme Court Authority - United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739 (1987) - Foucha v. Louisiana, 504 U.S. 71 (1992) - Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001) - Demore v. Kim, 538 U.S. 510 (2003) - Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976) - Jennings v. Rodriguez, 138 S. Ct. 830 (2018) - Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez, 596 U.S. 573 (2022)
5. Circuit Court Authority - Rodriguez v. Garland, 15 F.4th 351 (5th Cir. 2021), reh’g en banc denied, 31 F.4th 935 (5th Cir. 2022) - Sosnava-Rodriguez v. Ortega, No. [pending] (5th Cir. panel decision July 2, 2026), reh’g en banc granted July 14, 2026 (panel decision vacated) - Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi, No. [pending] (5th Cir. 2026) - Hernandez-Lara v. Lyons, 10 F.4th 19 (1st Cir. 2021) - Velasco Lopez v. Decker, 978 F.3d 842 (2d Cir. 2020) - Miranda v. Garland, 34 F.4th 338 (4th Cir. 2022) - Padmore v. Holder, 609 F.3d 62 (2d Cir. 2010) - Rodriguez Diaz v. Garland, 53 F.4th 1189 (9th Cir. 2022), reh’g en banc denied, 2023 WL 6800225 (9th Cir. Oct. 12, 2023) - Singh v. Holder, 638 F.3d 1196 (9th Cir. 2011)
6. Secondary Sources - Luis Cortes Romero, Matter of Kamalov Explained: BIA Makes Immigration Bond Harder to Get, Novo Legal Group (Sept. 9, 2026)

This article is intended for the professional education of immigration practitioners and does not constitute legal advice as to any particular case. Matter of Kamalov was designated as precedent on September 2, 2026; the en banc disposition of Sosnava-Rodriguez v. Ortega was pending at the time of writing. Practitioners should independently confirm the current status of all authorities cited before relying on this analysis in any filing.