The Eighth Circuit has remanded a motion to reopen filed by an asylum seeker who was forced to leave the United States to seek emergency medical treatment, and who missed her removal hearing as a result. The Court found that the Board of Immigration Appeals failed to determine if the emergency medical procedure qualified as an exceptional circumstance justifying her failure to appeal, and also declined to find that the applicant had necessarily abandoned her asylum application.
The full text of Payeras v. Sessions can be found here: