That Ninth Circuit Win You Read About Does Not Live in Colorado

It happens every few weeks. A headline says a federal court ruled that immigrants can do something, or that the government cannot. Somebody forwards it with three exclamation points. Then a client asks us when we are filing the same thing for them.

Usually the honest answer starts with a question: which court? Because in the federal system, where a decision comes from decides who has to follow it.

The federal appeals courts are split into regional circuits. The Ninth Circuit covers California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and Hawaii. Colorado sits in the Tenth Circuit, with Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming. When the Ninth Circuit publishes a decision, it binds the federal courts inside the Ninth Circuit. It does not bind the Tenth. Judges here may read it, find it convincing, and follow it. They may also read it and decide the opposite. Both happen.

Immigration cases follow the same map. Immigration judges and the Board of Immigration Appeals apply the law of the circuit where the case is heard. A case in the Denver or Aurora immigration court is a Tenth Circuit case. It stays a Tenth Circuit case even if the person's whole family lives in Los Angeles and the best decision on their issue came out of San Francisco.

So what is binding in Colorado? Three things, in order. The Supreme Court binds everyone. The Tenth Circuit binds every federal and immigration court in its six states. And published decisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals bind immigration judges everywhere, unless the circuit has said otherwise. A Ninth Circuit opinion is none of those here. It is an argument we are allowed to make, not a rule the judge has to follow.

When two circuits answer the same legal question differently, lawyers call it a circuit split. They are common in immigration law: what counts as a particular social group for asylum, which convictions carry immigration consequences, who gets a bond hearing and when. A split can last for years, until the Supreme Court takes a case and settles it for the whole country. Until then, the same facts can win in one state and lose in another. That is not a glitch. It is how the system is built.

This matters more now than it used to. For forty years, courts often deferred to the immigration agencies' own reading of an unclear statute. In 2024 the Supreme Court ended that practice, so each circuit now decides for itself what the statute means. Expect more differences between circuits, not fewer.

It also cuts both ways. There are questions where the Tenth Circuit's law is better for you than the Ninth's. Nobody forwards those articles.

Two practical notes. First, moving does not let you shop for a circuit after the fact. If you relocate and your case is transferred, the new court's law applies, and that can help or hurt. Decide with advice, not with a moving truck. Second, applications filed with USCIS are decided under national agency policy. Circuit law starts to matter when a denial is challenged in federal court, or when the case is in front of an immigration judge.

So the next time a headline lands in your phone, ask three questions. Which court decided it? Is that court's law binding where my case is? And does my situation even match the facts of that case? If you do not know, that is exactly what a consultation is for. We will tell you whether the decision is your rule, your argument, or just somebody else's good news.