Docket 24-777
Urias Orellana v. Bondi
DecidedMar 4, 2026
9-0decision
Source: CourtListener.
Courts must defer to immigration agencies on whether facts amount to "persecution" in asylum cases
Impact6/10
What it does
Courts of appeals must apply the "substantial-evidence" standard — meaning they can only overturn an immigration agency's persecution finding if no reasonable decision-maker could have reached the same conclusion — to the agency's entire persecution determination, including both the underlying facts and the application of the law to those facts. Courts may not independently re-examine (called "de novo" review) whether the facts meet the legal definition of persecution. This resolves a long-standing disagreement among the federal appeals courts over which standard applies.
Who benefits
The federal government and immigration agencies (the Immigration Judge and Board of Immigration Appeals), whose persecution determinations are now shielded from independent re-examination by federal appeals courts.
Who is affected
People who have applied for asylum in the United States and whose persecution claims were denied by an Immigration Judge or the Board of Immigration Appeals — they now face a higher bar to get a federal appeals court to reverse that denial.
Practical impact
Asylum seekers whose persecution claims are denied by an Immigration Judge or the Board of Immigration Appeals will find it significantly harder to win reversal in a federal appeals court — the court can only overturn the agency if no reasonable decision-maker could have agreed with it, not simply because the court would have decided differently. Federal appeals courts that had been applying de novo (independent) review to the legal portion of persecution determinations must now switch to the more deferential substantial-evidence standard. Immigration agencies retain broad authority to define and apply the persecution standard to individual cases without meaningful risk of judicial override.
Majority — Jackson
Joined by: Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett
The Court reasoned that the answer was already settled by its 1992 decision in INS v. Elias-Zacarias, which held that an asylum applicant seeking to reverse an agency's persecution finding must show the evidence was "so compelling that no reasonable factfinder could fail to find the requisite fear of persecution" — the classic formulation of substantial-evidence review. When Congress amended the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1996 by adding §1252(b)(4)(B) — which says agency "findings of fact are conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary" — it effectively wrote the Elias-Zacarias standard into the statute rather than departing from it. The Court further noted that the 1996 amendments broadly restricted (rather than expanded) federal court review of immigration decisions, making it implausible that Congress intended to allow courts to second-guess persecution determinations from scratch. The Court also rejected the argument that two more recent cases (Wilkinson v. Garland and Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr) required a different result, explaining that those cases addressed only whether a court has the power to review a question at all — not how deferentially it must review it once it does. Finally, the Court acknowledged that persecution determinations are "mixed" questions involving both facts and law, but concluded that because the overall refugee-status inquiry is so heavily fact-driven, Congress intended the deferential standard to cover the whole determination.
Constitutional question
Does federal law require courts of appeals to apply the deferential "substantial-evidence" standard when reviewing an immigration agency's determination that a given set of undisputed facts does or does not rise to the level of "persecution" under the Immigration and Nationality Act?
Precedent changed
The ruling extends and codifies INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478 (1992), confirming that its substantial-evidence standard for persecution determinations was carried forward into the current statute by Congress's 1996 amendments.