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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson authored the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling Wednesday ordering federal appeals courts to defer to immigration judges when reviewing asylum decisions, bolstering the executive branch’s authority in immigration cases and handing the Trump administration a win as it pushes an aggressive deportation agenda.
Jackson, a Biden appointee and one of three liberal justices on the high court, wrote that immigration laws require federal courts to use a “substantial-evidence standard” when reviewing immigration judges’ decisions about whether an asylum seeker could face “persecution” if deported.
Jackson emphasized the high bar courts must meet before overturning an immigration judge’s findings, potentially making it more difficult for migrants to challenge their deportations as the Trump administration cracks down on illegal immigration.
“The agency’s determination … is generally ‘conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary,’” Jackson wrote.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, migrants can claim asylum when crossing the border without documentation. But immigration judges, who are employees of the Department of Justice, eventually vet those claims and determine whether to grant the migrant asylum, which would allow them to stay in the country, or order their deportation.
The migrant can appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is also housed within the executive branch, and can then appeal that decision to the federal circuit courts and the Supreme Court.
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The decision in this case, Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, affirmed that the judicial branch must largely defer to the executive branch’s findings about whether the migrant would suffer persecution if deported, rather than start from scratch and conduct its own review.
“Another WIN for common sense!” the conservative thinktank America First Policy Institute wrote on X. “The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that immigration agencies not individual judges determine asylum claims based on alleged persecution. A clear reminder: America’s laws should be enforced as written.”
The case centered on asylum claims made by Douglas Humberto Urias-Orellana and his wife and child, all of whom were Salvadoran nationals who entered the country illegally in 2021 and then applied for asylum.
After an immigration judge denied their application and ordered their removal, the Board of Immigration Appeals and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit upheld the immigration judge’s decision.
Urias-Orellana had argued that a “sicario,” or hitman, had targeted him since 2016, after shooting two of his half-brothers and vowing to kill family members. The immigration judge found him credible but said the threats and incidents he described did not establish a valid fear of future persecution.
The Supreme Court was tasked with reviewing whether the 1st Circuit examined the immigration judge’s decision thoroughly enough. The high court concluded that the 1st Circuit rightly leaned heavily on the immigration judge’s determination.
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