Daniel Girmai Negusie v. Eric H. Holder, JR., Attorney General (555 U.S. 511)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 3, 2009 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 555 U.S. 511 · 129 S. Ct. 1159
- Decided
- March 3, 2009
- Term
- October Term 2008
- Vote
- 8–1
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court. An alien who fears persecution in his homeland and seeks refugee status in this country is barred from obtaining that relief if he has persecuted others. “The term ‘refugee’ does not include any person who ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), §101, 66 Stat. 166, as added by Refugee Act of 1980, § 201(a), 94 Stat. 102-103, 8 U. S. C. § 1101(a)(42). This so-called “persecutor bar” applies to those seeking asylum, § 1158(b)(2)(A)(i), or withholding of removal, § 1231(b)(3)(B)(i). It does not disqualify an alien from receiving a temporary deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), art. 3, Dec. 10, 1984, S. Treaty Doc. No. 100-20, p. 20, 1465 U. N. T. S. 85; 8 CFR § 1208.17(a) (2008). In this ease the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) determined that the persecutor bar applies even if the alien’s assistance in persecution was coerced or otherwise the product of duress. In so ruling the BIA followed its earlier decisions that found Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U. S. 490 (1981), controlling. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in affirming the…
Excerpt of a 22,258-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.