You applied for a green card the normal way — or you were about to — and now there is a Notice to Appear with your name on it. Maybe USCIS denied the I-485 and an appointment with an immigration judge followed. Maybe an arrest brought ICE into the picture while your marriage-based case was pending. Either way, the application you thought of as paperwork has become a defense, and the person who will decide whether you become a permanent resident is no longer an officer in a field office. It is a judge.
Here is what most people in that position do not know: this is usually not a catastrophe. It is a change of forum. The immigration judge applies the same adjustment statute the USCIS officer would have applied, and for some cases the judge is the better decision-maker. I have practiced immigration law since 1996 and founded the firm in 2001, and over that time I have watched adjustment of status in immigration court change character — from a detour you tried to escape as quickly as possible, back to the agency, into what it is today: often the destination, and sometimes the forum you would have chosen if anyone had asked you.
This page explains who an immigration judge can adjust, how a denied or first-time I-485 works in removal proceedings, what it costs, why the old exits back to USCIS have narrowed, and when standing your ground in court actually serves you. It is part of our removal defense section; if you are new to proceedings generally, start with what to expect in immigration court and come back.
How Green Card Cases End Up in Immigration Court
Three patterns account for most of the adjustment cases we see in removal proceedings.
First, USCIS denies a pending I-485 and then places the applicant in proceedings. In the current enforcement climate, a denial is routinely followed by a Notice to Appear rather than a quiet closing of the file. The denial can rest on a document problem, on the public charge rules that tightened in 2026, or purely on discretion — USCIS policy since May 2026 frames adjustment as “administrative grace” and instructs officers to weigh negative factors aggressively. Whatever the stated reason, the denied application does not die. As explained below, it can be renewed in front of the judge.
Second, a criminal arrest interrupts a pending case. The classic version is a domestic dispute in a marriage-based case: an argument, a 911 call, an arrest — and in most counties the jail reports the booking, ICE files a detainer, and the applicant is in removal proceedings before the criminal charge is even resolved. The pending I-485 moves to the courtroom with them.
Third, the person was in proceedings first and became eligible to adjust afterward — most often by marrying a U.S. citizen. A marriage entered while the case is pending carries its own presumption and paperwork; see what changes when you marry during removal proceedings. This is harder than it sounds, because eligibility depends on how the person entered the country and whether any bars apply; our guides on marrying someone without status and the marriage-based green card process cover the underlying rules. But when the elements line up, the application is filed directly with the immigration court.
Who Decides: The Immigration Judge’s Exclusive Jurisdiction
Once you are in removal proceedings, the question of who decides your green card application has a clean answer. Under 8 C.F.R. § 1245.2(a)(1), for anyone placed in proceedings other than as an “arriving alien,” “the immigration judge hearing the proceeding has exclusive jurisdiction to adjudicate any application for adjustment of status the alien may file.” Exclusive means exclusive: while proceedings are pending, USCIS cannot approve an I-485 for you, and filing a new one with USCIS accomplishes nothing. The judge is the decision-maker — for an application USCIS already denied, and equally for one filed for the first time in court.
USCIS keeps two important supporting roles. It still adjudicates the underlying I-130 or other visa petition — an immigration judge cannot approve a visa petition, only the adjustment application that depends on it. And it still runs the biometrics and background-check machinery that must be complete before any judge can grant relief; USCIS explains this division of labor on its immigration benefits in EOIR proceedings page.
The Arriving-Alien Exception
The rule flips for “arriving aliens” — people placed in proceedings at a port of entry, a category that includes returning parolees. For them, the immigration judge generally lacks jurisdiction over adjustment, and USCIS keeps it, unless a narrow exception applies for applicants who filed with USCIS, traveled on advance parole, were denied, and were then placed in proceedings. If you were paroled into the country and now face proceedings, which agency decides your case is a threshold question that deserves careful analysis before anything is filed, because filing in the wrong forum wastes months.
The Same Statute, a Different Courtroom
The substantive law does not change when the case changes buildings. INA § 245(a) still requires an admission or parole (with exceptions, such as VAWA self-petitioners and grandfathered 245(i) cases), an available immigrant visa, admissibility, and a favorable exercise of discretion. The bars in § 245(c) still apply, and § 245(k) still forgives limited status violations for certain employment-based applicants. If a ground of inadmissibility stands in the way, the judge can also hear a waiver application in the same proceeding — the regulations even direct the judge to tell you about relief you appear eligible for. A person who qualified at USCIS qualifies in court; a person who did not qualify at USCIS needs the same fix in either forum, as with the unlawful-presence bars that a 212(d)(3)-based strategy can sometimes address. One waiver runs the other way: a resident charged with fraud at the original admission can seek a § 237(a)(1)(H) waiver that exists only before the judge, never at USCIS.
Waiting on an I-130: The Continuance Is No Longer Automatic
When the I-485 depends on a visa petition USCIS has not yet approved, the traditional move is a continuance. The Board’s framework in Matter of Hashmi, 24 I&N Dec. 785 (BIA 2009), still governs: an unopposed continuance to await a pending family petition should generally be granted where approval would make the respondent prima facie eligible to adjust. But Hashmi now operates inside the tighter “good cause” regime of Matter of L-A-B-R-, 27 I&N Dec. 405 (A.G. 2018), and the 2026 Board has been reversing judges it views as too generous — in Matter of Pinzon Rozo, 29 I&N Dec. 507 (BIA 2026), for a continuance to await a distant visa number, and in Matter of A-K-R-, 29 I&N Dec. 839 (BIA 2026), on continuances generally. The practical lesson: file the I-130 early, document its status at every hearing, and treat each continuance as one you must earn.
What It Costs: Fees and Mechanics as of September 2026
Two fees stack when an I-485 is filed in immigration court. The I-485 is a DHS form, so under 8 C.F.R. § 1103.7(b)(4)(ii) it keeps its DHS filing fee in court: $1,440 under the USCIS G-1055 fee schedule as of September 2026. On top of that, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act added a separate immigration-court fee, charged “in addition to any other fees authorized by law,” to anyone who files an adjustment application with an immigration court or whose application is adjudicated there (8 U.S.C. § 1812(a)). That court fee is $1,540 through September 30, 2026, and $1,590 for filings on or after October 1, 2026 (91 Fed. Reg. 61447). A first-time I-485 filed in court therefore costs about $3,030 from October 1, 2026, against $1,440 for the same form filed with USCIS; EOIR’s payment portal shows the combined total. Both figures change every year, so check them before filing.
If USCIS already denied an I-485 you paid for, renewing it before the immigration judge has not historically required a second DHS filing fee, because the renewal continues the application you already funded. In our recent cases sent to court after a USCIS denial, judges have not asked for a fee at the first hearing. But the court fee reaches any adjustment application “adjudicated in immigration court” and is due “before such application is adjudicated,” so budget for it to be requested before your final hearing. Treat the mechanics as volatile, though: as of July 31, 2026, applications filed with the immigration court must carry proof of payment through the EOIR payment portal and, where a DHS fee applies, the USCIS payment portal, under updated pre-order instructions that ICE’s attorney provides in court. Fee logistics are exactly the kind of detail that changes between the day you read this and the day you file, so confirm the current instructions — or make sure your lawyer has.
The mechanics run in two channels at once. The application itself is filed with the court and litigated before the judge. The biometrics and background checks run through USCIS and ICE — fingerprints at an Application Support Center, an FBI check that must be current on the day of the hearing. A file that is complete on both channels is what allows the courtroom version of this process to end quietly and well.
When Immigration Court Is the Better Forum
Practitioners tend to talk about removal proceedings purely as a danger. Thirty years of these cases have taught me that for a specific set of applicants, the courtroom is genuinely the better room — and it is worth understanding why.
An immigration judge reads the file and rules on the record. A judge who denies your application must say why, on a record a higher tribunal can review. That structure protects you in a way a field-office adjudication does not. Field offices are uneven; most run competently, but we have seen offices lose track of cases for a year and more, schedule interviews without regard to counsel’s availability, and deny applications for reasons that never survive review. When that is the pattern, being transferred to a forum with a docket, a record, and an appeal is not a punishment. It is due process.
Judges also handle hard evidence problems better than checklists do. Some applicants come from countries, or from eras, where a birth certificate simply cannot be obtained. USCIS adjudication tends to treat the missing document as a defect; a courtroom lets you prove the fact the document would have proven, through secondary evidence and testimony the judge weighs directly. The same is true for applicants with complicated histories who expect a purely discretionary denial on paper: a hearing lets a human being explain, under oath, in context, what a cold file cannot.
And the endings can be surprisingly undramatic. When the petition is approved, the checks are current, and the documentation is complete, the individual hearing that was scheduled for two hours can come down to a single question from the judge to the government’s lawyer — any objection? — and the answer “no.” We have had adjustment hearings resolve in minutes for exactly that reason. The drama is optional. Preparation makes it optional.
What Is Harder in Court
None of that makes immigration court a soft forum, and you should hear the other side of the ledger plainly.
The burden of proof is formal and it is yours. Under INA § 240(c)(4), enacted as part of the REAL ID Act, you must establish both eligibility and that you merit a favorable exercise of discretion, and the judge may require corroborating evidence for facts that would otherwise rest on testimony alone. Early in my court practice, a judge reviewing one of my adjustment packages pointed out that my documents had not actually connected a client’s name change to the person sitting in the courtroom — and told me candidly that without that link the application would have to be denied. He suggested a continuance; I took it, fixed the record, and the case was granted. I pass the story along because it is the rule in miniature: in court, every link in the chain of proof has to be on the record, not assumed.
Discretion has also hardened. USCIS’s May 2026 policy memorandum PM-602-0199 frames adjustment as extraordinary relief, and the Board’s recent decisions run the same direction — in Matter of E-A-S-O-, 29 I&N Dec. 422 (BIA 2026), the Board affirmed a discretionary denial of adjustment for a respondent whose recent conviction and minimizing testimony outweighed his equities. A criminal record does not end an adjustment case in court, but it moves the case into territory where preparation, candor, and documented rehabilitation decide outcomes. You will also face a trained opponent: ICE’s trial attorney can cross-examine you and your witnesses, and deadlines in a courtroom are real in a way agency processing times are not. If the judge denies the application, the fight is not necessarily over — our guide to appeals and motions in immigration court explains the options after the decision. And if you do not qualify to adjust at all, cancellation of removal is the other main form of relief a judge can grant to someone with long residence and close family here.
The Exits That Used to Exist
For most of my career, the standard play when a client in proceedings had an approved I-130 was to ask the court to terminate proceedings so the client could adjust at USCIS — and it was routinely granted. That world is gone, and you should not build a strategy on its memory.
The termination power survives, but narrowly. After an Attorney General decision abolished most termination in 2018, Matter of Coronado Acevedo, 28 I&N Dec. 648 (A.G. 2022), restored it only for limited circumstances. The Board has since policed the line aggressively: Matter of Roque-Izada, 29 I&N Dec. 106 (BIA 2025), reversed a judge who terminated so a respondent could pursue adjustment at USCIS, and Matter of Santiago-Santiago, 29 I&N Dec. 589 (BIA 2026), reversed a termination granted without weighing the government’s opposition. When DHS opposes termination — and today it usually does — expect to litigate your adjustment where you stand.
When the Government Offers You a Dismissal, Slow Down
There is a newer trap that looks like the old exit. Since 2025, DHS attorneys have in many places moved to dismiss removal cases not as a favor but as a funnel: with proceedings dismissed, the person can be arrested — sometimes at the courthouse door — and placed in expedited removal, a process with no judge at all. Reports of this practice vary by city and month, and it may not describe your court on your hearing date. But the strategic point is durable: a dismissal is only good news if you have somewhere better to be. An applicant with a strong adjustment case pending before a judge may be better served opposing dismissal and asking the judge to decide the application than accepting a dismissal that returns them to the street with nothing pending. This is a decision to make with counsel, case by case.
Do Not Leave the Country
One rule in this area is absolute enough to state without qualification: do not depart the United States while you are in removal proceedings with an adjustment application pending. By regulation, a departure while under proceedings is deemed an abandonment of the application — and the law on travel has just become sharply less forgiving. In Matter of Delcarmen-Lara, 29 I&N Dec. 830 (BIA 2026), the Board overruled its own 2012 precedent and held that even a departure under a grant of advance parole is a “departure” that can trigger the ten-year unlawful-presence bar. The decision applies prospectively and may yet face challenges in the federal courts, but as of today it binds every immigration judge. If travel is on your mind, the conversation happens with your lawyer before any ticket is bought — not after.
The View from Montana
For our clients, geography shapes these cases as much as doctrine. Montana has no immigration court. By and large, Montana dockets are heard by an immigration judge sitting in Portland, with occasional cases venued in Salt Lake City — always confirm the assigned court on your hearing notice or through EOIR’s automated system. Detained cases generally mean the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. If you are detained, read our guide to immigration detention and bond hearings first. Hearings for non-detained respondents are commonly scheduled a year or more out, which sounds grim but cuts both ways: that calendar is time to complete the I-130, cure document problems, assemble the discretionary record, and arrive at the individual hearing with a file that invites the quiet ending described above. If you are trying to reconstruct what has happened in your case so far, start by getting your immigration court records.
Deciding Where — and How — to Make Your Case
If you take one idea from this page, take this one: adjustment of status in immigration court is not a lesser version of the process described in our adjustment of status guide — it is the same relief, decided by a different official, under stricter procedure, with less room for error and, for the right case, more room for fairness. The questions that decide strategy are concrete. Is the visa petition approved, and if not, how fast can it be? Does the judge or USCIS have jurisdiction over your particular posture? Is your evidentiary chain — identity, entry, relationship, admissibility — complete on paper? Do the discretionary factors need a hearing to be understood? And is any exit from proceedings actually better than the courtroom you are already in?
We work through exactly those questions with clients across Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming, laying out every available route with its costs, timelines, and risks so you can choose the one that fits your life. If your green card case has landed in immigration court — or you can see it heading there — schedule a strategy consultation and bring your paperwork. The forum has changed. The goal has not.
