CINCINNATI (LN) — The Sixth Circuit on Tuesday denied a Guatemalan man's bid to cancel his removal, using the case to establish binding precedent that hardship determinations under the Immigration and Nationality Act must be reviewed under the deferential substantial-evidence standard set by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 — resolving a circuit split the court had previously sidestepped.
Jose Baltazar Us, who entered the United States unlawfully in 2000 and has lived here since, argued that deporting him to Guatemala would force his two U.S.-citizen children to follow him there, where they would face financial, educational, and medical hardships severe enough to satisfy the INA's "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" threshold. An immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals both disagreed, and a three-judge Sixth Circuit panel unanimously affirmed.
The harder question was how closely the court should look. The Sixth Circuit had previously identified three competing possibilities — clear-error review, APA substantial-evidence review, or IIRIRA substantial-evidence review — but had declined to choose among them, instead describing its review only as "deferential."
The Supreme Court's decision earlier this year in Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, 146 S. Ct. 845 (2026), resolved the question. That ruling applied IIRIRA substantial-evidence review to the mixed question of whether undisputed facts rise to the level of persecution for asylum purposes, and the Sixth Circuit read its reasoning broadly. Because courts review hardship determinations under the same statutory provision — Section 242 of the INA — the panel held the same standard applies.
Under that standard, the Board's determination is "conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary," the court said, quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B). The Sixth Circuit joins the Third, Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits in adopting that standard. The Second Circuit stands alone in applying clear-error review instead.
Applying the new standard to Baltazar Us's case, the panel held that the immigration judge's findings — that the family had home equity and a vehicle to liquidate, that neither Baltazar Us nor his wife had shown they could not find work in Guatemala, and that the children had no serious medical conditions or learning difficulties — left no room for a reasonable adjudicator to reach a different result. The court also rejected Baltazar Us's argument that being his family's sole provider, without access to public assistance or in-law support, should tip the scales in his favor, explaining that applicants cannot satisfy the hardship standard by arguing only that their circumstances will result in more serious hardships than those cases in which relief was denied — they must show that the hardships in their specific case are exceptional and extremely unusual.
Circuit Judge R. Guy Cole Jr. concurred separately to emphasize that the cumulative-hardship analysis must be conducted correctly, noting that "[t]here may be circumstances in which a child's removal to a country known for violence and high crime rates, such as Guatemala, would qualify as an exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" — but that Baltazar Us had not provided evidence that these general social conditions would specifically harm his family.
The opinion was recommended for publication, making the IIRIRA standard binding across the circuit for all future cancellation-of-removal hardship challenges.