A unanimous Supreme Court ruling handed the Trump administration a significant legal win Wednesday, curtailing the ability of federal courts to second-guess deportation decisions made by immigration judges.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Biden appointee and one of three liberal justices on the court, authored the opinion.
The decision requires federal appeals courts to apply a deferential standard when reviewing asylum rulings issued by immigration judges.
The case, Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, arose from an asylum application filed by Douglas Humberto Urias-Orellana, his wife, and their child — Salvadoran nationals who entered the United States illegally in 2021.
The family sought asylum after Urias-Orellana claimed a hitman, described in court filings as a “sicario,” had targeted him since 2016 following the shooting deaths of two of his half-brothers and a threat to kill other family members.
An immigration judge found Urias-Orellana’s testimony credible but concluded that the incidents and threats he described did not rise to the level required to establish a legitimate fear of future persecution.
The Board of Immigration Appeals upheld that determination, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit subsequently affirmed the ruling.
The family then petitioned the Supreme Court, per reports.
The high court took up the question of whether the 1st Circuit had reviewed the immigration judge’s decision with enough scrutiny. The court concluded that the appeals court acted correctly in placing substantial weight on the immigration judge’s findings.
Writing for the court, Jackson stated that immigration law requires federal courts to apply a “substantial-evidence standard” when examining immigration judges’ determinations about whether an asylum seeker faces “persecution” upon return to their home country.
Jackson outlined the elevated threshold courts must clear before they can override an immigration judge’s findings.
“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 who cross the border without documentation may file for asylum.
Immigration judges — employees of the Department of Justice — then evaluate those claims and decide whether to grant asylum or order removal.
If an immigration judge denies the claim, the migrant can appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which also operates within the executive branch. That decision can then be challenged in the federal circuit courts and ultimately the Supreme Court.
The ruling affirmed that federal courts in the judicial branch must largely defer to the executive branch’s judgment about whether a deported migrant would face persecution, rather than conducting an independent review of the facts.
The decision bolsters the executive branch’s authority over immigration proceedings at a time when the Trump administration has moved aggressively to accelerate deportations and reduce judicial interference in immigration enforcement.
The America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, praised the ruling on social media platform X. “Another WIN for common sense!” the organization wrote. “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 ruling carries broad implications for migrants who seek to challenge their deportations through the courts, potentially raising the legal bar they must clear to succeed in those appeals as the administration intensifies its immigration crackdown.
