Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-979_h3ci.pdf
Page Number: 27.0

6 

PATEL v. GARLAND 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

agency  decisions  to  ensure  they  are  at  least  supported  by 
“substantial evidence.”  5 U. S. C. § 706(2)(E).  A similar, if 
surely more deferential, principle finds voice in the INA.  As 
relevant here, that statute endows federal courts of appeals
with the power to review “all questions of law and fact . . . 
arising from any action taken or proceeding brought to re-
move  an  alien  from  the  United  States.” 
8 U. S. C. 
§ 1252(b)(9).  And the law further provides that a court may
reject the agency’s factual findings underlying an order of
removal  if  it  concludes  that  no  “reasonable  adjudicator”
could adopt them.  § 1252(b)(4)(B); see also Garland v. Ming 
Dai, 593 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 7). 

That is exactly  the sort of argument Mr.  Patel seeks to 
pursue.  He hopes to persuade a court of law that the BIA’s
factual errors in his case are so obvious no reasonable fact-
finder could adopt them.  It is a claim expressly permitted 
by statute.  Tellingly, in the proceedings before us the gov-
ernment has continued to maintain that, however his case 
is finally resolved, Mr. Patel is entitled to his day in court.
Nor  is  this  some  new  position.    For  at  least  20  years  the 
government has taken the view that the law permits judi-
cial review in cases like these.  Yet even in the face of all 
this, the majority balks.  It holds that no court may enter-
tain Mr. Patel’s challenge.  And its reasoning promises that 
countless future immigrants will be left with no avenue to 
correct even more egregious agency errors. 

A 

How does the majority manage to reach such an unlikely 
conclusion?  It depends on a Court-appointed amicus who 
offers arguments for the government that even the govern-
ment refuses to advance on its own behalf.  It turns out, too, 
that all of those arguments hinge on a narrow exception to
the  usual  rule  of  judicial  review—one  found  in  8  U. S. C.
§ 1252(a)(2)(B)(i).  As relevant here, that exception reads: