Scope: This practice advisory addresses whether a finding that an asylum application is abandoned or pretermitted for failure to pay the asylum fee can be cured by filing a properly fee-paid successive asylum application.

Matter of L-F-R-, 29 I&N Dec. 787 (BIA 2026), holds that an Immigration Judge may set a deadline for payment of the annual asylum fee under 8 U.S.C. § 1808, and that an asylum application should be pretermitted or deemed abandoned, not denied, if the fee is not paid by that deadline. This advisory examines why that distinction matters: INA § 208(a)(2)(C) bars a successive asylum application only where a prior application was denied, and does not on its face bar a successive, fee-paid filing after a finding of abandonment or pretermission. The advisory also reviews the concerns and limitations of this approach, including the risk that the Board could later treat an abandoned or pretermitted application as functionally denied, and offers practitioners several fallback recommendations, including preserving withholding and CAT claims and documenting a genuine inability to pay.

Caveat: This is a general practice advisory. It does not constitute legal advice. Practitioners should verify all citations and confirm that no subsequent published decision, regulation, or circuit ruling has altered this analysis before relying on it in a filing.

Hon. Alice Segal, Former Immigration Judge