The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) on Tuesday held that federal courts have a limited role in reviewing immigration judge findings, reversing a decision from the Ninth Circuit appeals court that helped grant immigration relief to illegal aliens seeking asylum.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a 9-0 decision that there is “nothing in the [Immigration and Nationality Act]” that “contemplates anything like the embellishment the Ninth Circuit has adopted” when deeming that an illegal alien’s testimony in an immigration case must be considered credible and true if not explicitly stated otherwise by an immigration judge or the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA).
“The Ninth Circuit’s deemed-true-or-credible rule cannot be reconciled with the INA’s terms,” Gorsuch writes in the unanimous opinion.
Cesar Alcaraz-Enriquez, a previously deported illegal alien from Mexico, and Ming Dai, a Chinese national who first arrived on a B-2 tourist visa, had sought asylum in the U.S.
In Alcaraz-Enriquez’s case, during the course of his hearing before a federal immigration judge, he claimed that he needed asylum in the U.S. because his life would be threatened in Mexico if he was deported. Evidence in the case revealed that Alcaraz-Enriquez pleaded no contest in California to inflicting corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant and was sentenced to two years in prison.
Weighing whether this constituted a “particularly serious crime,” Alcaraz-Enriquez said he was upset with his 17-year-old girlfriend because he believed she was hitting his daughter, and thus hit her.- READ MORE
Listen to the insightful Thomas Paine Podcast Below --