My motion to reopen was denied — can a federal court review that?

Motions to reopen and reconsider, briefly

After a removal order becomes final, the statute leaves two narrow ways back into the agency:

• A motion to reconsider (INA § 240(c)(6)) argues the agency got the law or facts wrong on the existing record. Deadline: 30 days from the final order.
• A motion to reopen (INA § 240(c)(7)) presents new, material evidence that was unavailable at the original hearing. Deadline: 90 days from the final order — with important exceptions, including changed country conditions for asylum-based motions (no time limit) and certain in-absentia orders (180 days, or none where notice was never received).

Generally each person gets one motion to reopen. The agency can also reopen on its own authority (sua sponte), though that discretionary route is largely beyond judicial review.

The denial is its own reviewable order

When the BIA denies a motion to reopen or reconsider, that denial is a final order in its own right. A petition for review may be filed within 30 days of the denial — a genuinely fresh window, even if the underlying removal order is years old.

The critical caveat: the new petition reaches the denial, reviewed for abuse of discretion, not the merits of the old removal order. If the original order was never petitioned within its own 30 days, the merits of that order are gone. Two orders, two clocks, no cross-crediting.

The post-departure wrinkle

For years the agency took the position that physical removal from the United States extinguished the right to file a motion to reopen — the so-called post-departure bar. The courts of appeals that have squarely addressed that regulation have rejected it as applied to timely statutory motions. A person already removed can, in most circuits, still file a timely motion to reopen from abroad — which matters enormously for wrongful-removal cases, because a granted motion revives the underlying proceedings.

Where this fits strategically

A motion to reopen is often the last administrative move available, and its denial is often the last order a federal court can review. Building the motion properly — new evidence documented, legal standard squarely addressed — is what gives the later petition for review something to work with. A thin motion produces a thin record, and the court of appeals reviews nothing but that record.