Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Aguirre-Aguirre

INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre
INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre
	Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 3, 1999; Decided May 3, 1999
Full case name	Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Aguirre-Aguirre
Docket nos.	97-1754
Citations	526 U.S. 415 ( more ) 119 S. Ct. 1439; 143 L. Ed. 2d 590; 1999 U.S. LEXIS 3005
Prior history	Petition for review in the Ninth CIrcuit granted, 121 F.3d 521 (9th Cir. 1997).
Holding
	In ruling that the Board of Immigration Appeals must supplement its weighing test by examining additional factors not considered by the Board, the Ninth Circuit did not accord Chevron deference to the BIA's decision.
Court membership
	Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor ; Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy ; David Souter · Clarence Thomas ; Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Majority	Kennedy, joined by unanimous
Laws applied
	8 U.S.C. § 1253(h)(1)

Last updated April 09, 2019

Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U.S. 415 (1999), examined a doctrinal question last presented to the U.S. Supreme Court in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Cardoza-Fonseca .^[1] In Aguirre-Aguirre, the Court determined that federal courts had to defer to the Board of Immigration Appeals's interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. Established pursuant to Article III of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, it has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, including suits between two or more states and those involving ambassadors. It also has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all federal court and state court cases that involve a point of federal constitutional or statutory law. The Court has the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution or an executive act for being unlawful. However, it may act only within the context of a case in an area of law over which it has jurisdiction. The court may decide cases having political overtones, but it has ruled that it does not have power to decide nonjusticiable political questions. Each year it agrees to hear about one hundred to one hundred fifty of the more than seven thousand cases that it is asked to review.

Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987), decided that the standard for withholding of removal set in INS v. Stevic, was too high a standard for applicants for asylum to satisfy. In its place, and consistent with the standard set by the United Nations, the Court in Cardoza-Fonseca held that an applicant for asylum in the United States only needs to demonstrate a "well-founded fear" of persecution, which can be met even if the applicant does not show that it is more likely than not he will be persecuted if returned to his home country.

The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) is an administrative appellate body within the Executive Office for Immigration Review of the United States Department of Justice.

Facts

In 1994, the Immigration and Naturalization Service began deportation proceedings against Juan Anibal Aguirre-Aguirre, who conceded deportability but requested asylum and withholding of deportation. At a hearing before an immigration judge, Aguirre testified he had been politically active in his native Guatemala with the Sindicato Estudiante (Student Union) and with the National Central Union political party. With these groups, Aguirre protested bus fares and the Guatemalan government's failure to investigate the murders and disappearances of other students. These protests included burning buses, breaking windows, and attacking police cars. Aguirre estimated he had set fire to around ten buses. When the passengers on these buses refused to leave, they were stoned, beaten with sticks, or tied up. Aguirre testified that he left Guatemala because of threats he received on account of his having participated in these activities.

The United States recognizes the right of asylum for individuals as specified by international and federal law. A specified number of legally defined refugees who either apply for asylum from inside the U.S. or apply for refugee status from outside the U.S., are admitted annually. Refugees compose about one-tenth of the total annual immigration to the United States, though some large refugee populations are very prominent. Since World War II, more refugees have found homes in the U.S. than any other nation and more than two million refugees have arrived in the U.S. since 1980. In the years 2005 through 2007, the number of asylum seekers accepted into the U.S. was about 40,000 per year. This compared with about 30,000 per year in the UK and 25,000 in Canada. The U.S. accounted for about 10% of all asylum-seeker acceptances in the OECD countries in 1998-2007. The United States is by far the most populous OECD country and receives fewer than the average number of refugees per capita: In 2010-14 it ranked 28 of 43 industrialized countries reviewed by UNHCR.

Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The term expulsion is often used as a synonym for deportation, though expulsion is more often used in the context of international law, while deportation is more used in national (municipal) law.

Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, Belize and the Caribbean to the northeast, Honduras to the east, El Salvador to the southeast and the Pacific Ocean to the south. With an estimated population of around 16.6 million, it is the most populated country in Central America. Guatemala is a representative democracy; its capital and largest city is Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción, also known as Guatemala City.

The immigration judge granted Aguirre's applications for asylum and withholding of deportation. The INS appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), which reversed the immigration judge, and ordered Aguirre deported. The BIA concluded that even if Aguirre had established the requisite level of persecution, see INS v. Stevic , 467 U.S. 407 (1984), he had committed a "serious nonpolitical crime" and was thus ineligible for withholding of deportation under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Under BIA precedent, the political aspect of the offense must outweigh its common-law character. As the activity Aguirre had participated in on behalf of the Estudeante Syndicado disproportionately affected civilians, the criminal aspect of his activities outweighed their political aspect. Aguirre asked the Ninth Circuit to review the BIA's decision.

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The United States Reports are the official record of the rulings, orders, case tables, in alphabetical order both by the name of the petitioner and by the name of the respondent, and other proceedings of the Supreme Court of the United States. United States Reports, once printed and bound, are the final version of court opinions and cannot be changed. Opinions of the court in each case are prepended with a headnote prepared by the Reporter of Decisions, and any concurring or dissenting opinions are published sequentially. The Court's Publication Office oversees the binding and publication of the volumes of United States Reports, although the actual printing, binding, and publication are performed by private firms under contract with the United States Government Publishing Office.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a U.S. Federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:

From the Ninth Circuit's standpoint, the BIA's decision was deficient in three respects. First, the BIA should have balanced the persecution Aguirre might have suffered if he should return to Guatemala against the offenses he had committed there. Second, it should have considered whether the offenses were grossly disproportionate to their objective. Third, it "should have considered the political necessity and success of Aguirre's methods." As the BIA did not consider these things, the Ninth Circuit found that the BIA's legal analysis was wanting and remanded the case. The INS asked the Supreme Court to review the decision.

Decision of the Supreme Court

The U.S. Attorney General must grant an applicant withholding of removal if he determines that the alien's life or freedom would be threatened in a country on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. 8 U.S.C. § 1253(h)(1). Generally, withholding of deportation is required if it is more likely than not that the alien would be persecuted in his home country on account of one of the protected grounds. However, withholding does not apply if the Attorney General determines that "there are serious reasons for considering that the alien has committed a serious nonpolitical offense outside the United States prior to the arrival of the alien in the United States." ^{[ citation needed ]}

Title 8 of the United States Code codifies statutes relating to aliens and nationality in the United States Code.

The Ninth Circuit did not disagree that the "serious political offense" exception to mandatory withholding was the proper framework under which to analyze the case. The Ninth Circuit had "confronted questions implicating" the BIA's "construction of the statute which it administers", which meant it should have asked whether or not "the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue" before it. The Court clarified that this threshold inquiry, called the "Chevron deference", applies to questions regarding the BIA's interpretations of parts of the Immigration and Nationality Act, including the "serious political offense" exception. The BIA determined that the alien's criminal acts were not to be judged against the risk that he will be persecuted if he returned to his home country. This conclusion was consistent with the text of the statute, as it "is not obvious that an already-completed crime is somehow rendered less serious by considering the future circumstance that the alien may be subject to persecution if returned to his home country."

Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), was a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court set forth the legal test for determining whether to grant deference to a government agency's interpretation of a statute which it administers. Chevron is the Court's clearest articulation of the doctrine of "administrative deference", to the point that the Court itself has used the phrase "Chevron deference" in more recent cases. The fundamental test applied by the court, when appropriate, is deferential: "whether the agency's answer is based on a permissible construction [emphasis added] of the statute", so long as Congress has not spoken directly to the precise issue at question.

The Ninth Circuit ruled that the "political nature of the offenses would be more difficult to accept if they involved acts of an atrocious nature," such as indiscriminate massacre of civilians. But the BIA did not dispute that this, in the abstract, "may be important in applying the serious nonpolitical crime exception." Thus, the Supreme Court decided that "the BIA's determination that 8 U.S.C. § 1253(h)(2)(c) requires no additional balancing of the risk of persecution rests on a fair and permissible reading of the statute."^[2]

Other

Bender's Immigration Bulletin, V.4, No. 10 noted on May 15, 1999 that a "Motion to Reopen was pending at the BIA on the issue of interpretation and transcript errors, thus leaving open the possibility that on remand, the Ninth Circuit may in time be reviewing the results of a new hearing with a new set of facts".^[2]

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References

↑ 480 U.S. 421 (1987).
1 2 Bender's Immigration Bulletin, V.4, No. 10 (May 15, 1999), pp 451-52

External links

Text of Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U.S. 415(1999) is available from: Cornell CourtListener Findlaw Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress Oyez (oral argument audio)
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Brief of the Solicitor General

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[1] 480 U.S. 421 (1987).

[bender-2] 1 2 Bender's Immigration Bulletin, V.4, No. 10 (May 15, 1999), pp 451-52