Opinion analysis

Last week at Garland v Day with Garland v Alcaraz-Enriquez, The Supreme Court held that unless the agency first determines that the applicant is credible, the review court cannot consider the asylum seeker’s testimony to be credible.Unanimously passed ViewThe pen was written by Judge Neil Gorsuch, which dismissed the contrary practice of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In the debate and briefing, the government argued that the rules of the Ninth Circuit—to treat asylum-seekers’ testimony as credible when faced with an agency’s silence on credibility— violated the federal court’s review standards.At the same time, asylum seekers argued that the rule Chenari In principle, it requires the federal courts to review the reasons given by the agencies, not in place of their own reasons.

In asylum cases, the immigration judge is responsible for making credibility decisions based on facts. Regulations covering asylum applications-Title 8, Section 1158- Specify “If the immigration judge does not explicitly make an unfavorable credibility decision,” “the applicant or witness should have a rebuttable presumption of appeal credibility before the Immigration Appeals Board.” However, if the BIA fails to clearly determine that the presumption has been refuted, the statute does not state what the Federal Court should do.

In the Ming Dai and Cesar Alcaraz-Enriquez cases, the immigration judge did not (explicitly) make a determination of credibility, and the BIA did not (explicitly) apply the presumption or consider it to refute it. Therefore, the 9th Circuit considered the asylum seeker’s testimony to be credible when conducting its own review.

The Supreme Court unanimously rejected this approach. “Nothing inside [Immigration and Nationality Act] Consider any decorations similar to those used in the Ninth Circuit,” Gossack wrote. “And for a long time, review courts’usually were not free to impose additional judges on institutions not regulated by Congress and not mandated by the Constitution.’ Procedural requirements. “

Gorsuch agrees with the government’s opinion that the rule violates the review standard. According to the standard, the court accepts the agency’s fact finding unless “Any reasonable adjudicator will be forced to come to the opposite conclusion. In giving decisive weight to testimony that contradicted the agency’s findings, “the rules of the Ninth Circuit incorrectly reversed this standard. “

He also explained that the lower courts mistakenly “see credibility as a decisive factor in persuasiveness and legal adequacy.” Since asylum seekers are responsible for persuading the agency and providing sufficient evidence, the BIA can even “set aside” to make appropriate rulings against them. [their] Credibility. “

Gosaki is famous Because of his doubts about the legal interpretation of the organization and his strong opposition Chevron Respect the framework. But when considering agency rulings in this factual context, he provided BIA with a wide range of freedoms.He nodded to each other Chenari Doctrine does not allow “afterwards Reason”, but continued:”[N]One of these means that BIA must follow certain formulas or spells such as “magic words” such as “unbelievable” or “rebuttal” to overcome INA’s presumption of credibility at the time of appeal. “

On the contrary, the review court should “consider the possibility that the BIA secretly discovered that the presumption of credibility was refuted”. Gorsuch explicitly instructed the 9th Circuit Court to do so in the remand cases of Dai and Alcaraz-Enriquez.

The 9th Tour (and other tournaments) may now have to cast serious doubts about BIA’s confusing decision about credibility.What is less clear is how the review court will ensure that the BIA provides Asylum seeker A key benefit of suspicion-the presumption of credibility in section 1158.