- USCIS ruled that SIJ petitions must be received before the 21st birthday to meet the age requirement.
- Filing on the birthday fails, even if USCIS receives the petition early that day.
- The receipt date controls, not the mailing date; weekends and federal holidays do not extend the cutoff.
The USCIS Administrative Appeals Office ruled that a Special Immigrant Juvenile petition must be filed before the applicant’s 21st birthday. Filing on the birthday fails the age test, even if the petition arrives earlier that day.
The birthday itself controls. The decision, Matter of Borges Borsoi, was issued September 23, 2026, and is cited as 30 I&N Dec. 67 (AAO 2026), Interim Decision #4248. It establishes a binding precedent for SIJ filings.
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The case turns on the regulation’s requirement that a petitioner be “under 21 years of age at the time of filing the petition.” The Administrative Appeals Office read that language as requiring filing on a calendar day before the applicant turns 21, rather than at any hour before the birthday ends.
The decision states:
“There is no dispute that a birthday ordinarily means the entire 24-hour day, and therefore petitioners must file their SIJ petitions on a day before the day they turn 21 for their petitions to be considered as filed while still under the age of 21.”
That reading makes the applicant’s entire birthday ineligible for filing under this age requirement. An application submitted at the start of the birthday does not qualify any more than one submitted later.
The agency counts receipt, not the day a petition goes in the mail
The filing date is when the agency receives the petition, not when the applicant sends it. Mailing a package on the day before the birthday will not meet the cutoff if delivery occurs on or after the birthday.
That makes delivery timing part of the age calculation. Applicants approaching the limit need to account for transit time, intake delays and delivery cutoffs rather than treating a postmark or mailing receipt as the filing date.
The birthday does not move to the next business day if it falls on a Saturday, Sunday or federal holiday. The age requirement is not a filing deadline that receives an extra day when an office is closed. The agency treats the cutoff as a substantive eligibility test, measured by the applicant’s age on the filing date.
The decision therefore draws a firm line: a petition received the day before the 21st birthday meets the age timing rule; one received on the birthday does not. The ruling applies the same way when the applicant files early in the day, because the birthday counts as a full calendar day.
A juvenile-court order does not change the age test
SIJ eligibility involves a juvenile-court order as well as the age requirement. The age cutoff in this case comes from 8 C.F.R. § 204.11(b)(1), the regulation governing the filing condition, rather than a specific age limit set directly by Congress.
Congress did not set a particular age requirement for SIJ petitioners, according to the analysis of the decision. The agency’s regulation supplies the age rule, and the appeals office interpreted its phrase “at the time of filing” to mean before the day the applicant turns 21.
That interpretation answers whether a birthday that falls on a non-business day creates extra time. It does not. The relevant question is whether the agency received the petition before the birthday, not whether a weekend or holiday interrupted ordinary filing operations.
The ruling focuses on this SIJ age test. It should not be treated as a substitute for the rules governing every other immigration filing or age-based benefit. Different provisions may use different eligibility rules and timing calculations.
Separate child-status protections may still apply
The Child Status Protection Act can preserve eligibility in some cases involving related child-status filings. But those protections do not alter the SIJ requirement to be under 21 at filing when that requirement governs the petition.
Applicants and attorneys therefore need to assess any separate child-status protection on its own terms. It does not move the SIJ birthday cutoff or turn filing on the 21st birthday into timely filing.
The precedential decision took effect immediately, according to commentary on the ruling. SIJ petitioners nearing 21 must have their petitions received before the birthday, not merely mailed by then.
