Opinion ID: 3011740
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: General Asylum Standards

Text: The federal asylum statute confers discretion on the Attorney General to grant asylum to an alien applicant if the Attorney General determines that such alien is a refugee within the meaning of section 1101(a)(42)(A). 8 U.S.C. S 1158(b)(1). Section 1101(a)(42)(A) defines refugee as any person who is outside any country of such person's nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country 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 . . . . 8 U.S.C. S 1101(a)(42)(A). The asylum applicant bears the burden of establishing that he or she falls within this statutory definition of refugee. See 8 C.F.R. S 208.13(a) (2000); see also Balasubramanrim v. INS, 143 F.3d 157, 161 (3d Cir. 1998). Section 1158(b)(2) lists several exceptions pr oscribing the Attorney General from exercising his discretion to grant asylum, including the exception pertinent to this appeal, added to the federal asylum statute by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA): Section 1158(b)(2)(A)(vi) bars the grant of asylum to an alien firmly resettled in another country prior to arriving in the United States. 8 U.S.C. S 1158(b)(2)(A)(vi); see also 8 C.F.R. S 208.13(c)(1) (2000) (For applications filed on or after April 1, 1997, an applicant shall not qualify for asylum if section . . . 208(b)(2) of the Act[8 U.S.C. S 1158(b)(2)] applies to the applicant.).4 (Text continued on page 9) _________________________________________________________________ 4. The compulsory language of the statute and r egulations makes clear that a finding of firm resettlement is currently a mandatory bar to the 7 grant of asylum. However, a brief survey of the evolution of the firm resettlement bar reveals that this was not always the case. The concept of firm resettlement was first introduced into U.S. immigration law in the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, ch. 647, 62 Stat. 1009, which used the concept of firm resettlement in the definition of displaced person, and the Refugee Relief Act of 1953, Pub. L. No. 83-203, 67 Stat. 400, which expressly included the phrase fir mly resettled in the definition of refugee, as a limitation on the persons eligible for such status. See Rosenberg v. Yee Chien Woo, 402 U.S. 49, 53-54 & n.3 (1971). When the Refugee Relief Act was extended in 1957, however , the firmly resettled language was dropped from the r efugee definition, and was not reinserted in subsequent statutory revisions to U.S. refugee laws until the IIRIRA in 1996 codified the firm r esettlement bar. See 8 U.S.C. S 1158(b)(2)(A)(vi). The present firm resettlement bar re-emerged in the Supreme Court's 1971 decision in Yee Chien Woo, a case involving a native of mainland China, who fled that country in 1953, arrived in the United States in 1960, and eventually applied for an immigrant visa claiming a preference under S 203(a)(7) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, as an alien who fled a Communist country fearing persecution on account of race, religion, or political opinion. See 402 U.S. at 50-51, 53. In the seven years prior to his arrival in the U.S., Yee Chien Woo had lived and worked in Hong Kong. See id. at 50. The INS used Yee Chien Woo's residence and work in Hong Kong as a ground for denying his application, but the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit determined that the INS's reliance on the alien's fir m resettlement was erroneous. See id. at 51-52. Pointing to the fact that Congress had omitted the phrase firmly resettled from statutory definitions of refugee after 1957, the Ninth Circuit concluded that Y ee Chien Woo's firm resettlement in Hong Kong was irrelevant to the issue whether his immigration application should be granted underS 203(a)(7). See id. The Supreme Court, however, unambiguously r ejected the Ninth Circuit's approach: In short, we hold that the `r esettlement' concept is not irrelevant. It is one of the factors which the Immigration and Naturalization Service must take into account to determine whether a refugee seeks asylum in this country as a consequence of his flight to avoid persecution. Id. at 56. As the quoted language above demonstrates, following Yee Chien Woo, firm resettlement was not a mandatory bar to asylum eligibility, but rather one of the factors the INS was to weigh in exercising its discretion as to the grant of an alien's asylum application. See, e.g., Farbakhsh v. INS, 20 F.3d 877, 881 (8th Cir. 1994) (canvassing briefly the history of 8 Firm resettlement, persecution, and well-founded fear of persecution are all findings of fact that we review under the deferential substantial evidence standar d articulated in INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478 (1992).Substantial evidence is more than a mere scintilla and is such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion. Senathirajah v. INS , 157 F.3d 210, 216 (3d Cir. 1998) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Under the substantial evidence standar d, the BIA's finding must be upheld unless the evidence not only supports a contrary conclusion, but compels it. See EliasZacarias, 502 U.S. at 481 & n.1; Chang v. INS, 119 F.3d 1055, 1060 (3d Cir. 1997) (On questions of fact, we will reverse the BIA's determination that[an applicant] is not eligible for asylum . . . only if a reasonable fact-finder would have to conclude that the requisite fear of persecution existed.) (emphasis added).