Supreme Court Rules Courts Must Defer to Immigration Agencies on Asylum Cases
Yes, even the three leftist justices agreed.
The Supreme Court upheld the standard for reviewing asylum cases, keeping it in the hands of immigration agencies.
Yes, even the leftist justices agreed. 9-0.
“We granted certiorari to determine whether the Court of Appeals applied the appropriate standard of review under the INA [Immigration and Nationality Act],” wrote Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson. “We conclude that the statute requires application of the substantial evidence standard to the agency’s conclusion that a given set of undisputed facts does not constitute persecution.”
In Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, Humberto Urias-Orellana claimed he and his family faced persecution in El Salvador.
The family entered America illegally in 2021:
In support of petitioners’ applications for asylum, Urias-Orellana testified that he was being targeted by a hitman in El Salvador. The Immigration Judge (IJ) found Urias-Orellana’s testimony credible but concluded that it did not establish past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution under the INA. The IJ accordingly denied the petitioners’ asylum applications and ordered their removal. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed. On petition for review, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit also affirmed, holding that, under the substantial-evidence standard of review, the record did not compel a contrary finding.
Immigration judges and the BIA fall under the executive branch.
“Section 1252(b)(4) does not use the phrase ‘substantial
evidence,’” explained Jackson. “But it does specifically address the ‘[s]cope and standard for review’ that the courts of appeals must apply when evaluating IJ and BIA removal orders.”
The section’s subparagraph B applies to this case: “the administrative findings of fact are conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.”
Jackson admitted that the court of appeals uses “varying standards to the agency’s persecution determination.”
However, the Supreme Court has already “concluded that these determinations receive substantial-evidence review.”
The 9th Circuit wrote in 1994, “Substantial evidence is such relevant evidence as reasonable minds might accept as adequate to support a conclusion even if it is possible to draw two inconsistent conclusions from the evidence.” Maynard v. City of San Jose, 37 F.3d 1396, 1404 (9th Cir. 1994).
Also, Congress already requires the court of appeals to defer to the immigration judge (I omitted the citations) (emphasis mine):
With their focus on the metaphorical trees, we think petitioners have missed the forest. It is certainly true that the required persecution determination turns on more than just the facts: The INA’s legal standard for “persecution” must be applied to the IJ’s findings of fact. But Elias-Zacarias and the subsequent statutory history suggest that Congress meant for the entirety of this kind of “mixed” determination—including both the IJ’s factual findings and the application of the statute to those findings—to receive deference under §1252(b)(4)(B). That makes sense because the overall determination of refugee status primarily requires the IJ to make critical factual findings about a given applicant’s experiences in his country of nationality. And even where, as here, the IJ accepts the applicant’s testimony as true, the IJ must make an antecedent determination on the factual question of the applicant’s credibility. Given that Congress has required the courts of appeals to give significant deference to IJ fact finding throughout §1252(b)(4), it would be anomalous indeed to conclude that courts can review substantially similar persecution-related findings de novo.
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Could someone summarize this please?
To oversimplify, the leftists who want to tie the hands of our INS just lost another one. Thank You, Lord.
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So they defanged Jeb?
The 9-0 makes me a little suspicious.
Oh? Why is that? Blind squirrels and all that.
Methinks that SCOTUS is trying to atone for the Tariff Debacle
It’s kinda like the ‘Chevron Rule’ for INS agencies. IE: INS are the experts in this area, so the circiut courts have must defer to them in these matters.
This person had applied for asylum. The government did not dispute his factual assertions, so there was nothing to decide about them. The government agreed that yes, everything you claim is true, but that just doesn’t amount to persecution, so you don’t get asylum.
Now as SCOTUS recently affirmed, once there’s a final deportation order the subject has the right to challenge it in a federal appeals court. This person did so in the first circuit, and the appeals court said that since the government’s determination was supported by substantial evidence it would not strike it down.
Now had there been a dispute about the facts, and the government had determined that the subject was not telling the truth, the appeals court would have to apply the substantial evidence standard in reviewing that determination. If it was supported by substantial evidence it would have to uphold it, even if the court itself would have made a different determination.
But in this case there was no factual dispute, only a dispute about how to characterize those facts. And the appellant wanted SCOTUS to hold that unlike factual determinations, such determinations were not subject to the substantial evidence standard, and the first circuit should have started from scratch and seen whether it agreed with the administration that these agreed facts don’t amount to persecution.
SCOTUS said no, the appeals courts have it right. The same standard that applies to the facts also applies to how to characterize those facts. In both cases if the government’s determination is backed by substantial evidence the courts must accept it.
Immigration cases are heard in immigration courts, and NOT in Article III federal courts.
Period.
This is a HUGE ruling for the administration, and for all future administrations that want to enforce immigration law.
It means that all of the hundreds (thousands, probably) of cases that the D’s have filed in federal courts over the past year get thrown out and any new cases will be immediately dismissed (or, should be, but they’ll shop for some libtard D appointed federal district court judge willing to defy a 9-0 SCOTUS opinion, because ideology > law).
Immigration courts have administrative “judges” that serve at the pleasure of the President. They aren’t confirmed by the Senate and can be fired at will. This past year, for instance, Trump has removed the majority of immigration “judges” that he inherited from Biden simply for being too lenient and granting asylum too often.
That is completely wrong. This ruling changes absolutely nothing.
Immigration “courts” are not courts, they are simply the administration’s internal procedure to decide whether it wants to deport someone. While that process is pending, at least in the 3rd and 5th circuits subjects can’t go to a real court. But once the administration has concluded its decision-making process, and has issued a final deportation order, i.e. it has decided that it definitely wants to deport the person, then the person has an absolute right to go to a real court and petition for habeas. This ruling doesn’t disturb that at all.
No, it is not. it changes nothing at all. It upholds how the courts have been conducting their reviews all along.
That is bullshit. There is nothing in this ruling that in any way requires that. On the contrary, the entire point of the ruling is about the standard of review that the Article 3 courts must use when reviewing final orders of deportation. That obviously means they can and must review them, if the subject petitions for such review. And the ruling says that the standard the courts have been using for that review is correct and should continue.
Exactly. And that means they’re not real judges, they’re merely the president’s employees and agents, and therefore their decisions are no more binding than an order from him, and thus the subject has a right to judicial review.
Sure.
SCOTUS just officially quashed one of Milhouse favorite lies –that immigration courts and judges are not real judges.
And before the registered Democrat can call me a liar here’s one of his comments from earlier in this discussion–
I’m not aware of any case in which a court overturned an immigration “judge’s” determination that a given set of facts doesn’t constitute persecution for the purposes of the asylum law, so long as that determination was supported by substantial evidence.
Note the scare quotes..
Milhouse, weren’t you leaving to go work on some pseudo-communists campaign or something?
Jesus! You know you’re case was a shocker when you lose even the DEI hire
!!
DEI hireS.
It is clear that Immigration is under Immigration Judges run by the Admin per Congressional Law. SCOTUS confirmed it 9-0 but all Federal Judges knew this and have been still blocking the Trump Admin. Hopefully now the Trump Admin will ignore the blocks by these various Judges and continue removing illegal aliens.
the holding is actually very narrow.
it only applies to asylum seekers.
unfortunately regular illegal immigrants do not fall under this ruling
True, the holdings applies only to asylum seekers, but that underplays the significance.
Asylum seekers is a very large number of illegal immigrants. Moreover, this is the primary tool used to stay in the US. If a person is not an asylum seeker, there are few, if any, legal arguments for staying in the US.
No, this ruling upholds exactly what the courts have been doing all along.
I’m not aware of any case in which a court overturned an immigration “judge’s” determination that a given set of facts doesn’t constitute persecution for the purposes of the asylum law, so long as that determination was supported by substantial evidence.
This applicant was trying to get the supreme court to overturn that practice and order the lower courts to review the determination de novo. All 9 justices said no, we can’t do that.
Fyi. There are only two non-leftist judges.
Thomas & Alito, to be precise.
What a sorry spectacle. Two out of nine Justices who can be relied upon to consistently evince fidelity to the U.S. Constitution and to the principle of judicial humility and modesty.
Meh. Isn’t Kilmar Abrego Garcia still here?
My understanding is that KAG’s case is the question of whether the administration can deport an individual to any country willing to take them which wasn’t the issue here.
This isn’t meh. Leftist district court judges have been using their assumed authority to review IJ rulings from jump to bigfoot final deportation orders and then require the illegals be released prior to the review “hearing”. Of course the illegals are in the wind as soon as ICE lets them go which is the real intent of the judge’s actions. Combine this the recent ruling (maybe just a District Court but I think it’s on the way to the USSC) that illegals can be detained indefinitely while awaiting judicial review of their cases and it will significantly undercut the ways progressive judges have of getting illegals released from ICE custody.
No, this does not change anything that judges have been doing. It agrees that of course all IJ rulings are subject to judicial review. They have to be. But the standard of review that the courts have been using is the correct one, which is that so long as the IJ ruling is supported by substantial evidence it stands.
Can you cite a case where a court overturned a final order of deportation on the grounds that it disagreed with the IJ’s determination that the agreed facts don’t constitute persecution, even if there was substantial evidence supporting that determination?
If you actually read my comment, you would understand that whatever the district court would rule is immaterial. The whole point of the exercise is for the district judge to be able to order ICE release the illegal from detention at which point they disappear and never appear at the hearing.
You can appeal your murder conviction as many times as you like but you are going to do it from Death Row (after sentencing) until you win the appeal because the original conviction is presumed valid.
What the leftist judges have been doing is essentially ruling the IJ determination of not eligible for asylum is void and thus the illegal can not be detained by ICE until they make the same determination. The USSC slapped down that avenue of forcing ICE to release illegals with deportation orders.
You’re wrong. As far as I know no court has done what SCOTUS now says they can’t do. The courts have all along said they can’t and won’t do that, and SCOTUS just agreed.
If you know of a court ruling that this decision would preclude, please cite it.
Why is it our country’s responsibility to give asylum to every tom dick and jose claiming someone’s trying to kill them in their country of origin. I don’t care. Stay home or go elsewhere, Not here.
Yes. They have a right to flee but if it’s not political then it’s not relevant to asylum.
They have no RIGHT to flee here. Go elsewhere. In fact according to international law they should only go so far as the first country willing to accept them. Doesn’t matter if they don’t like that country. They don’t have a right to come here.
The U.S. generally has given asylum to select people in the past — for example, Cubans fleeing the Castro regime. That was expanded in more recent times, which is how we ended up with Somalis, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Afghanis. The ‘temporary’ refugee status fit perfectly Jose’s Axiom (“nothing is more permanent than that which is called temporary”). In part we’re haunted by our refusal to give asylum to European Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939-44.
And of course, our generosity has been sorely abused, which is why so many of us are angry. A better government would tightly control asylum requests, shorten the wait time to near zero, and make temporary truly temporary (as in El Salvador, which is now a lawful state). But we don’t have that better government yet.
Two points.
1) Many fleeing are fleeing economic hard times or climate change. I don’t care. Go elsewhere.
2) I would wager most claims of political persecution are BS, I’d listen to those from actual political figures. From random Joses on the street. No. I don’t care. Don’t come here just because you don’t like your government or those in power. Stay and fix things.
Based upon 2) the only group of yours I’d let in are Afghanis and only those that directly worked for us. The rest. Too bad. Most of you are not at risk. You just don’t like things. Stay and fix them.
I’d also let in Vietnamese who worked for us and those Cambodians who were at real risk of genocide. That should be the criteria for asylum.
Fleeing climate change?
That’s like fleeing “gender incongruence.”
I’d like to point out that many Afghanis that “worked for” the US in-country were not good people, nor were they particularly trustworthy, according to military who worked with them.
Just because they took American money does not make them good candidates for allowing within our borders..
The same is probably true of other foreign nationals who worked for us, but I have no info on that.
And no one ever fled the imaginary climate change.
No, but anyone whose life is in danger because they helped us has a moral claim on us, and we have a duty to protect them.
Milhouse,
No. Heck no. I was a combat advisor to Iraqi Army embedded in an Iraqi infantry battalion for 16 months. Theoretically every one of the 800 ish Iraqi Soldiers (and their families) are potentially at risk for their service at the height of the conflict in late 06 -08 in Ramadi.
There’s no flipping way they have a moral claim on the USA. Especially considering there were roughly 80-100 JAM (Jaish Al Mahdi) sympathizers in that battalion. Several got rolled up when conducting JAM operations v Coalition forces when back in Baghdad on their ‘leave’ cycle.
It is/was their Country to save, to choose to fight the various flavors of insurgents, sit on the fence, join the insurgents or go kick rocks. We were there to assist them, they weren’t there to assist us. Same for Afghanistan.
Your point is about bad allies is good. There is still a moral imperative to help them. If not to here than to another muslism country.
As for climate change aliens while no one has ever fled climate change it is certainly true that globalists throw around climate change as a reason for human migration. Thus it has to be mentioned during rebuttals.
Unanimous. wow.
Even the 3 left winged losers don’t want anyone usurping their power
It’s not that surprising, because it is upholding existing practice. Even the three leftists didn’t want to be seen to be creating a brand new standard, just because Trump.
It may be a narrow case pertaining to asylum seekers, but I sense the Supremes have had it up to the neck line of their judicial robes with the District Court judges. Constantly defying the Supreme Court rulings and inventing new ways to undermine President Trump. When in fact they are only undermining the federal judiciary.
Get ready — the latest trick of the judicial left is that there is a “common law” right to remain in the U.S. if you are an illegal immigrant who has managed to evade deportation for “long enough”. Just as ‘common law marriage’ presumes that a man and woman who have lived together long enough are effectively married, ‘common law immigration’ presumes that if you’re here long enough, you have a right to stay regardless of what the law might say.
If you say that’s crazy-talk, welcome to the left.
Those arguments have been tossed around for a while. In essence an attempt to shoehorn illegal aliens who managed not to get detained by ICE for decades under some sort of pseudo estoppel when they finally do get caught. It’s a crap argument b/c it would also logically apply to anyone who evaded apprehension for any crime, civil infraction. Not the precedent SCOTUS wants to set, even the leftists on the CT would probably balk.
I’d agree to letting them stay provided a progressive (or Somalian) is kicked out for each one staying. For progressive start with females with colored hair or weird piercings or visible tattoos. Alternatively I’d allow a whole family to stay if a progressive judge is booted out,
I’m declaring this to be common law. Don’t like it. Suck it.
Does that mean we are now required to use the term “common law homeownership” instead of “squatting?”
I think that’s already true in California.
Should we ask Billie Eilish?
We should ask Indian Senator Warren as to whether Eilish is living on stolen land and should give it back.
scotus leftists:
we know when we smell an easy one
Urias-Orellana v. Bondi is procedurally similar to DC v, Heller, as far as results go.
Virtually everybody forgets that Heller asked a question about rights, and a question about as-applied law. The major question — about rights — was decided unanimously. That is why I almost always refer to Heller as “The Unanimous Heller Decision”. Sure, we won on the applied test too. In this case, the major question and the minor question got unanimous rulings.
Why did the USSC have to rule that the clear law passed by Congress meant what it said? That is both hard to understand and obvious at the same time. Too many federal judges consider themselves to be gods, not subject to the laws of the US. Very similar to the perfectly clear meaning of the 2nd Amendment, which the federal judiciary is still ignoring.
The major difference is that Heller overturned what courts were then doing. This decision upholds the courts’ existing practice. The petitioner wanted the justices to order the appeals courts to use a different standard and they refused.
It may seem obvious, but illegal immigrants are NOT U.S. citizens. Ergo article III courts have no business getting involved in article II issues.
To explain in more detail, our constitutional protections do NOT apply to non-citizens, except in VERY limited circumstances. Illegals are by definition, NOT U.S. citizens, hench article III courts have nothing whatsoever to say about their detention. The supreme court has also ruled that detention and deportation is NOT punishment for a crime. hence deportation is solely and completely and administrative matter, not subject to judicial review.
This has been recognized and affirmed by the supreme court many times. Deportation of illegals is an administrative matter governed by the rules of the executive branch.
The courts have been behaving in a blatantly illegal manner, hence the 9-0 decision. It’s not that the lower courts are wrong, they have no business even hearing the cases, and zero judicial authority over this matter. The trump administration has been shockingly patient on this issue.
That is utter bullshit.
First of all, the constitution protects ALL PERSONS who are under its jurisdiction, regardless of their citizenship or legal status.
Second, all deportation orders ARE subject to judicial review. Once there is a final deportation order from the administrative system, the subject has the absolute right to file for habeas and make the administration demonstrate to a judge that it is correctly holding the subject.
This case was merely about the standard to be used in reviewing one specific kind of administrative decision. And far from bringing “rogue judges” in check, the court affirmed what they have been doing all along.
Moron, people avoiding the jurisdiction of the US–which is WHY they’re illegal aliens ARE NOT ‘under the jurisdiction’.
That is leftist fantasy and you need to take it and shove it up your leftist butt.
So hard you try to avoid admitting that SCOTUS just smashed your lie.
Doesn’t this pretty much kick Boasberg’s cases to the curb now? Technically he never had jurisdiction in most of the cases he is beating the DOJ up about.
No, it’s got nothing to do with any case Boasberg has ever had. This is about the standard of review that appeals courts should use when final orders denying asylum are brought to them. And it affirms that the courts have been doing it right.
Meh. Wanna bet that #Resistance Federal judges continue to do as they please? The goal of the #Resistance judges is to continue to bring the deportation process to a halt by any means – legal or illegal.
This decision upholds the standard that the courts were already using. If you are aware of any ruling by a “resistance judge” that this decision would preclude, please cite it. As far as I know there has never been such a ruling.
Is it a fair assessment that the USSC heard this case to emphasize that federal circuit courts don’t get to second guess IJs on determinations of asylum status? If so, what court/judge have been reversing IJs determinations on asylum status?
Is it too much to hope for that there may be a case they, the USSC, may hear that could stop the nonsense going on in Minnesota? I thought a recent 5th circuit decision stopped the habeas craziness?
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/02/so-much-habeas.php
No, that would not be a fair assessment. On the contrary, they do get to review such determinations once they’re final. This is about the standard they should use in such review. And the decision affirms that they’ve been doing it right.
Only in the 5th circuit. There was also a significant decision in the 3rd circuit. Minnesota is in the 8th.
Thanks. Begs the question as to why the Supreme Court needs to affirm what the lower courts are doing if they are currently using the correct criteria for review of a deportation order.
When is SCOTUS expected to rule on the birthright citizenship case?
It hasn’t even been heard yet. Argument is scheduled on April 1.
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