Supreme Court Clarifies Standard of Review for Asylum Decisions

In Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, 607 U.S. ____ (2026), the U.S. Supreme Court held that courts of appeals must apply substantial-evidence review to the Board of Immigration Appeals’ determination whether a given set of undisputed facts constitutes “persecution” under 8 U.S.C §1101(a)(42).

Facts of the Case

Petitioners Douglas Humberto Urias-Orellana, his wife Sayra Iliana Gamez-Mejia, and their minor child G.E.U.G., are natives of El Salvador who entered the United States without authorization in 2021. After being placed in removal proceedings, petitioners applied for asylum. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the U.S. Government “may grant asylum” to a noncitizen if it “determines” that he “is a refugee.”

An asylum seeker qualifies as a “refugee” if he “is unable or unwilling to return” to his country of nationality “because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

In support of petitioners’ applications for asylum, Urias-Orellana testified that he was being targeted by a hitman in El Salvador. The Immigration Judge found Urias-Orellana’s testimony credible but concluded that it did not establish past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution under the INA.

The judge accordingly denied the petitioners’ asylum applications and ordered their removal. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed. On petition for review, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit also affirmed, holding that, under the substantial-evidence standard of review, the record did not compel a contrary finding.

Supreme Court’s Decision

The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson writing on its behalf. “We conclude that the statute requires application of the substantial-evidence standard to the agency’s conclusion that a given set of undisputed facts does not constitute persecution,” she wrote.Accordingly, reversal of the BIA’s decision is “warranted only ‘if, in reviewing the record as a whole, any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.’”

While the Supreme Court acknowledged that the courts of appeals have applied varying standards, it emphasized that the Court has already concluded that the persecution determination—including both the underlying factual findings and the application of the INA to those findings—receives substantial-evidence review. In INS v. Elias- Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478 (1992), the Court held that to obtain judicial reversal of the agency’s persecution determination, an asylum applicant must show that the evidence presented was “so compelling that no reasonable factfinder could fail to find the requisite fear of persecution.”

The Court further found that although Congress amended the INA shortly after the Court’s decision, those amendments—and the addition of §1252(b)(4)(B) in particular—codified the Elias-Zacarias standard. Accordingly, the statute, as it currently reads, requires substantial-evidence review.

The Court rejected arguments that de novo review should apply because §1252(b)(4)(B) requires deference only for “findings of fact” and no subparagraph explicitly addresses the mixed question of law and fact that is the determination of persecution. According to the Court, Elias-Zacarias and the subsequent statutory history suggest that Congress meant for the entirety of this “mixed” determination to receive deference under §1252(b)(4)(B).

“Given that Congress has required the courts of appeals to give significant deference to IJ factfinding throughout [section 242(b)(4) of the INA], it would be anomalous indeed to conclude that courts can review substantially similar persecution-related findings de novo,” Justice Jackson explained.