A rare confession of error by the U.S. Office of Solicitor General to the U.S. Supreme Court may give a pro se prisoner in an immigration case another chance to convince a federal appeals court not to approve his removal from the country.

The prisoner, Jamaican-born Andrew Brown, filed a petition for review in the Supreme Court claiming that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit incorrectly dismissed his appeal as untimely. He argued that the federal Board of Immigration Appeals had mailed its final decision on his removal to the wrong prison address and that prevented him from meeting the appeal deadline.

In the Supreme Court, U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco told the justices that the Board of Immigration Appeals and the government agreed now that the board mailed its original decision to the wrong address.