Court Opinion

ID: 9627277
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:41:23.214616+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:40.105378
License: Public Domain

CALABRESI, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
What is remarkable about this case is that essentially everyone on this court agrees that IIRIRA § 601(a), codified at 8 U.S.C. § 110 l(a)(42)(B), cannot be read to grant per se asylum to spouses. This is remarkable because it is in direct conflict with every other circuit, the BIA, and ten years of rulings. See Maj. Op. at 300 & n. 4. Yet we all agree. And we are correct. Moreover, it follows that, because § 601(a) does not grant that kind of asylum to spouses, it also cannot be read as granting asylum to non-spouses — like the petitioners in this case. This part of the majority’s analysis is admirable, and I join it.
Because § 601(a), in unambiguous terms, grants per se “refugee” status only to the “person who has been forced to abort a pregnancy or to undergo involuntary sterilization,” the panel in this case— consisting of the author of the majority opinion, the principal concurrence, and me — sent the case back to the BIA, to allow the agency to reexamine its decision in In re C-Y-Z-(C-Y-Z-), 21 I. & N. Dec. 915 (B.I.A.1997) (en banc) (construing *335§ 601 as granting per se. “refugee” status to spouses). The BIA stuck to its decision, see In re S-L-L-(S-L-L-), 24 I. & N. Dec. 1 (B.IA..2006) (en banc), but has not convinced us that C-Y-Z-s rule can be squared with the plain text of § 601(a), and so we now appropriately say that the BIA was wrong.
Unfortunately, both the majority and concurrences are not willing to stop with that, which was the issue clearly before us and fully considered by the BIA. For reasons that are quite understandable, but nonetheless wrong — both in terms of results and in terms of what the Supreme Court has said about our relationship to the BIA — the majority and the concurrences go further. They do so in different directions, and that fact is, to me, simply additional evidence that going further was inappropriate.
I
The majority says that if the BIA were to construe the general definition of “refugee” found in 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A) as granting per se refugee status to certain categories of people — e.g., spouses or non-spouses — that would be an impermissible reading of § 1101(a)(42)(A). This seems to me to be mistaken on several counts.
A
First, the majority relies on the fact that § 601(a) was enacted to overturn Matter of Chang, 20 I. & N. Dec. 38, 44 (B.I.A.1989) (adopting the rule that victims of a coercive family planning regime could claim refugee status only if the victims demonstrated that the family-planning policy had been “selectively applied” to them on the basis of a protected ground). See Maj. Op. at 306-07. The majority posits that § 601(a) was not intended to do more than overturn Chang, and that Chang is therefore left in place as to spouses and partners who are not themselves forcibly aborted or involuntarily sterilized. See Maj. Op. at 307 (“The inclusion of some obviously results in the exclusion of others.”). And, under Chang, spouses and partners are not entitled to per se refugee status.
Fair enough, but Chang is not an opinion of the Supreme Court, or even of a Court of Appeals; it is an interpretation of underlying statutory law by the BIA. As such, the agency is perfectly free to change it — so long as the change is not inconsistent with the underlying law. Thus, any suggestion that the BIA could not, because of Chang, now grant per se status to spouses pursuant to § 1101(a)(42)(A) is a non sequitur, plain and simple.
B
Second, the logical consequences of what the majority seems to be saying appear to me to be untenable. Suppose the BIA were to issue an interpretation of § 1101(a)(42)(A) that said, categorically, that any child who sees his parents tortured and murdered before him by a totalitarian government — say, the Nazis — is persecuted, and therefore eligible for asylum. Would such a ruling be invalid under § 1101(a)(42)(A)’s broad definition of refugee? If that is what the majority is saying, -it is, in my judgment, manifestly absurd. There is nothing in the language or history of § 1101(a)(42)(A) that suggests the BIA could not adopt such a per se rule.
But, if the BIA could adopt the kind of per se rule I described above — and I believe a majority of our court would agree with me that such a rule would indeed be proper — then it is improperly premature to say — as today’s governing opinion does — that the agency could not adopt an analogous per se rule with respect to individuals in the situation of the petitioners in *336this case. It may be that if the BIA did adopt such a per se rule, I would ultimately agree with the majority that, in the context of coercive family planning laws, such an interpretation of § 1101(a)(42)(A) is “unreasonable” at Chevron’s Step Two.1 But once it is admitted that some categorical per se asylum rules — like the one involving my hypothetical children — might be valid under § 1101(a)(42)(A) (i.e., would get by Chevron Step One) — it is, I believe, impermissible to say that an equivalent per se interpretation dealing with spouses would necessarily be invalid if it were adopted — which is in effect what the majority’s holding amounts to. It is impermissible given the Supreme Court’s unanimous decisions in INS v. Orlando Ventura, 537 U.S. 12, 123 S.Ct. 358, 154 L.Ed.2d 272 (2002) (per curiam), and Gonzales v. Thomas, 547 U.S. 183, 126 S.Ct. 1613, 164 L.Ed.2d 358 (2006) (per curiam).
1
In Ventura, the Supreme Court held that, “[generally speaking, a court of appeals should remand a case to an agency for decision of a matter that statutes place primarily in agency hands.” 537 U.S. at 16, 123 S.Ct. 353. “This principle,” the Court explained, “has obvious importance in the immigration context,” id. at 16-17, 123 S.Ct. 353, because “[wjithin broad limits the law entrusts the agency to make the basic asylum eligibility decision here in question.” Id. at 16, 123 S.Ct. 353. Subsequent case law has only strengthened Ventura’s reasoning. The “ordinary remand rule” was recently reaffirmed by a unanimous Supreme Court in Thomas, 547 U.S. 183, 126 S.Ct. 1613, 164 L.Ed.2d 358, and has been followed by our court in a series of cases, most notably in Ucelo-Gomez v. Gonzales, 464 F.3d 163, 168-70 (2d Cir.2006). Yet, despite the “obvious importance” of the ordinary remand rule in the immigration context, the majority insists on precluding the BIA from interpreting § 1101(a)(42)(A)’s general provisions in the first instance. In my view, this aspect of the majority’s holding is dangerously in tension with Ventura’s command.
In Ventura — much as in the case before us — the Ninth Circuit reversed a holding of the BIA, and then “went on to consider an alternative argument that the Government had made before the Immigration Judge,” but which “the BIA itself had not considered.... ” 537 U.S. at 13, 123 S.Ct. 353. Specifically, the Ninth Circuit reversed the BIA’s holding that the petitioner was not persecuted “on account of’ a “political opinion,” but then, rather than remanding to the BIA for further proceedings, the court evaluated for itself, and rejected, the government’s alternative argument that the petitioner failed to qualify for asylum because of changed country conditions in Guatemala. Id. In reversing the Ninth Circuit’s judgment, the Supreme Court found that the court of appeals
seriously disregarded the agency’s legally-mandated role. Instead, it independently created potentially far-reaching legal precedent about ... a highly complex and sensitive matter. And it did so without giving the BIA the opportunity to address the matter in the first instance in light of its own expertise.
Id. at 17, 123 S.Ct. 353.
More recently, the Court in Thomas reversed a Ninth Circuit decision which had decided, without first remanding the issue *337to the BIA, “that in principle ‘a family may constitute a social group for the purposes of the refugee statutes,’ ... [and] that the particular family at issue ... fell within the scope of the statutory term ‘particular social group.’ ” 126 S.Ct. at 1614 (quoting Thomas v. Gonzales, 409 F.3d 1177, 1187, 1189 (9th Cir.2005) (en banc)) (emphasis added). Quoting Ventura—and echoing the basic principle of SEC v. Chenery Corp. (Chenery I), 318 U.S. 80, 63 S.Ct. 454, 87 L.Ed. 626 (1943), that “an appellate court cannot intrude upon the domain which Congress has exclusively entrusted to an administrative agency,” id. at 88, 63 S.Ct. 454—the Thomas Court reiterated that “[a] court of appeals is not generally empowered to conduct a de novo inquiry into the matter being reviewed and to reach its own conclusions based on such an inquiry.” Thomas, 126 S.Ct. at 1615 (quoting Ventura, 537 U.S. at 16, 123 S.Ct. 353 (internal quotation marks omitted)).
In Ucelo-Gomez, a panel of this court concluded that Thomas and Ventura establish the rule that “where (as here) the agency has yet to decide whether a group, a thing, or a situation falls within the ambit of a statutory term, the proper course is for the reviewing court to remand the matter to the agency in accordance with the well-worn ordinary remand rule.” Ucelo-Gomez, 464 F.3d at 169 (internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, the panel in Ucelo-Gomez asserted that “the agency interpretation required by Thomas and Ventura is ‘in the first instance’ a particularized interpretation by the agency.” Id. (emphasis omitted).
As a purely formal matter, the approach taken by the majority today is perhaps reconcilable with Ventura and Thomas. But it is fundamentally incompatible with the spirit of those cases. Even if the majority is convinced that C-Y-Z-'s rule would be an unreasonable construction of § 1101(a)(42)(A), the correct approach would be to allow the agency to make a determination on that matter first. Instead, the majority opinion — perhaps realizing that it could not, at this time, authoritatively speak on the question of C-Y-Z-'s reasonableness as a construction of § 1101(a) (Jp2) (A) — by a preemptive strike strips the BIA of its capacity to consider the issue under § 1101(a)(42)(A). In so doing, the majority precludes the BIA from examining thoroughly this “highly complex and sensitive matter,” Ventura, 537 U.S. at 17, 123 S.Ct. 353, and “independently create[s] ... far-reaching legal precedent .... without giving the BIA the opportunity to address the matter in the first instance in light of its own expertise.” Id. Significantly, Ventura and Thomas are designed to prevent just such judicial preemption of BIA positions, even when that preemption reaches what is arguably the correct result.
Moreover, even if the majority were not required — as I believe it was — to remand Zhen Hua Dong’s case to the BIA,2 it *338should have remanded his case as a matter of wise discretion. Cf. Jian Hui Shao v. Bd. of Immigration Appeals, 465 F.3d 497, 501, 503 (2d Cir.2006) (concluding that “the BIA is better situated than we are to decide the statutory interpretation question in the first instance,” and noting that “[o]ur decision to remand this question of law to the BIA for resolution in the first instance is supported by recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and our Court” (emphases added)); Yuanliang Liu v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 455 F.3d 106, 116 (2d Cir.2006) (“Because we conclude, as a matter of discretion, that it is prudent and useful for us to remand the issue of frivolousness, we need not address the more complicated question of when remands to the BIA are required by elementary principles of administrative law”).
I believe that the majority’s haste in narrowly construing § 1101(a)(42)(A)— and, therefore, in cabining the BIA’s discretion — is particularly troubling given the circumstances of this ease. At stake is a rule of the BIA that has been in place, and relied upon, for over ten years. See S-L-L-, 24 I. & N. Dec. at 14 (Board Member Pauley, concurring) (“[Notwithstanding my belief that Matter of C-Y-Z- ... was wrongly decided, I would not overrule it now, nearly a decade later and in the aftermath of thousands of decisions applying it to grant asylum on a derivative basis.”). In addition, the invalidation of C-Y-Z-’s rule will have sweeping ramifications for this court’s immigration law docket; by one estimate, “70-80 percent of the [petitioners in our court] are Chinese seeking asylum to escape their homeland’s family planning policies.” BIA Appeals Remain High in 2nd and 9th Circuits, The Third Branch: Newsletter of the Fed. Cts. (Admin. Office of the U.S. Cts. Office of Pub. Affairs, D.C.), Feb. 2005, available at http://www.uscourts.gov/ttb/feb05ttb/bia/ index.html (citing statement of Elizabeth Cronin). Given all this, our court should have approached the question of C-Y-Z-'s permissibility — either as it was or with nuanced modifications — not with haste, but with trepidation. For the truth is that we cannot foretell how the BIA would have interpreted the general definition of § 1101(a)(42)(A), had it been asked to focus on that language.
By trying to decide something that is not yet before us, the majority bars the BIA from bringing its expertise to bear on this sensitive issue. In the process, the majority does not only preclude the BIA from reenacting the per se rule of C-Y-Z—a rule which, at the proper time, I might well have concluded was “unreasonable” at Chevron Step Two, for all of the reasons the majority recites. The majority also prevents the agency from interpreting the general language of § 1101(a)(42)(A) in ways which might have suffered from none of the problems the majority properly associates with the current per se rule — ways, incidentally, which might truly have promoted congressional policy goals.3 In this respect, the majority *339opinion keeps the agency from doing what administrative agencies do best, namely, using their expertise to convert general statutes into specific rules that best reflect an underlying legislative intent.4
Ironically, it was precisely because of the above reasons that the panel in Shi Liang Lin — comprised, as I mentioned earlier, of the author of the majority opinion, the principal concurrence, and me— sent it back originally. Yet if the majority’s reasoning were valid, then there would have been no reason for the panel to do so. Nonetheless, we sent it back then, and the BIA ruled only as to whether per se refugee status could be granted directly under § 601. See infra Part II.B. If the case were sent back again, to allow the agency to consider whether to extend per se protection under § 1101(a)(42)(A), it is possible that the BIA would have agreed with the majority that no such protection should be adopted. Or the BIA might have adopted a more sensible rule. Under the majority’s approach, we will never know.
Accordingly, I respectfully, partially, dissent from the majority opinion.
II
But I cannot join the concurrences either. They act as if the BIA, because it mentioned “nexus” in passing, made a ruling under § 1101(a)(42)(A). It didn’t. Since the agency has yet to interpret the *340broad language of that section, it is wrong for us to say — -as the concurrers do — that the agency expressed views to which we owe deference. And this is so, regardless of whether such a ruling, had it been made, would have passed the requirements of Chevron Step Two.
A
In SEC v. Chenery Corp. (Chenery I), 318 U.S. 80, 63 S.Ct. 454, 87 L.Ed. 626 (1943), and SEC v. Chenery Corp. (Chenery II), 332 U.S. 194, 67 S.Ct. 1575, 91 L.Ed. 1995 (1947), the Supreme Court articulated, and then reaffirmed, “a simple but fundamental rule of administrative law”: “[A] reviewing court, in dealing with a determination or judgment which an administrative agency alone is authorized to make, must judge the propriety of such action solely by the grounds invoked by the agency.” Chenery II, 332 U.S. at 196, 67 S.Ct. 1760. And “[i]f those grounds are inadequate or improper, the court is powerless to affirm the administrative action by substituting what it considers to be a more adequate or proper basis.” Id. The reason for this rule is obvious: “If an order is valid only as a determination of policy or judgment which the agency alone is authorized to make and which it has not made, a judicial judgment cannot be made to do service for an administrative judgment,” because “an appellate court cannot intrude upon the domain which Congress has exclusively entrusted to an administrative agency.” Chenery I, 318 U.S. at 88, 63 S.Ct. 454.
The Chenery decisions also recognized “an important corollary of the foregoing rule”: “If the administrative action is to be tested by the basis upon which it purports to rest, that basis must be set forth with such clarity as to be understandable.” Chenery II, 332 U.S. at 196, 67 S.Ct. 1760. As the Court explained, “[i]t will not do for a court to be compelled to guess at the theory underlying the agency’s action; nor can a court be expected to chisel that which must be precise from what the agency has left vague and indecisive.” Id. at 196-97, 67 S.Ct. 1760. If it were otherwise, an appellate court could impose its own policy judgments under the guise of “review.”
Our court has repeatedly recognized and applied these fundamental rules of administrative law: (1) we may only review that which an agency itself has stated; and (2) the agency must make those statements in clear terms. See, e.g., Riverkeeper, Inc. v. EPA, 475 F.3d 83, 105 (2d Cir.2007) (“We cannot opine on this subject, because we must consider only those justifications that the [agency] offered at the time of the rulemaking.”); Singh v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 461 F.3d 290, 294 n. 3 (2d Cir.2006) (“[W]e cannot, on appeal, substitute an argument — even one the BIA made in another context — for those that the BIA actually gave to support the conclusion ... dispute[d] on appeal.”); Cao He Lin v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 428 F.3d 391, 400 (2d Cir.2005) (“[W]e will limit our review of the [agency’s] decision to the reasons [it] actually articulates.... To assume a hypothetical basis for the [agency’s] determination, even one based in the record, would usurp [the agency’s] role.”); Shi Liang Lin v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 416 F.3d 184, 192 (2d Cir.2005) (“The government suggests that we may simply supply our own rationale for the BIA’s decision in C-Y-Z- and then act accordingly. But the Supreme Court has made clear that ‘[i]t will not do for a court to be compelled to guess at the theory underlying [a particular] agency’s action; nor can a court be expected to chisel that which must be precise from what the agency has left vague and indecisive.’ It is not difficult to understand why. Were courts obliged to create *341and assess ex-post justifications for inadequately reasoned agency decisions, courts would, in effect, be conscripted into making policy.” (quoting Chenery II, 332 U.S. at 196-97, 67 S.Ct. 1575)).
B
I recite these well-known tenets of administrative law because I believe that they preclude us from taking the route advocated by the concurring opinions. Because the BIA’s opinion in S-L-L- is lacking in clarity, it is certainly possible, with some creativity, to construe the decision as having been based on rationales which the BIA itself did not invoke. But we are not empowered to invoke those reasons. The BIA is required to speak for itself.
1
The precise basis of the BIA’s decision in C-Y-Z- was anything but clear. But the BIA and this court have in the past stated that it was based on a construction of § 601(a). See Shi Liang Lin, 416 F.3d at 188 (noting that, in C-Y-Z-, “the BIA held that, under IIRIRA § 601(a), the forced sterilization or abortion of one spouse is an act of persecution against the other spouse .... ” (emphasis added)); see also id. at 191 (“[A] fresh look at C-Y-Z-reveals that the BIA never adequately explained how or why, in the first instance, it construed IIRIRA § 601(a) to permit spouses of those directly victimized by coercive family planning policies to become eligible for asylum themselves.” (emphasis added)); see S-L-L-, 24 I. & N. Dec. at 3 (“In Matter of C-Y-Z-, supra, we held that a husband whose wife was forcibly sterilized could establish past persecution under this amendment [i.e., IIRIRA § 601(a) ]” (emphasis added)).
In Shi Liang Lin, the panel
remand[ed] the instant petitions to the BIA so that the BIA [could]: (a) more precisely explain its rationale for construing IIRIRA § 601(a) to provide that the ‘forced sterilization of one spouse on account of a ground protected under the Act is an act of persecution against the other spouse’ and that, as a result, the spouses of those directly victimized by coercive family planning policies are per se as eligible for asylum as those directly victimized themselves; and (b) clarify whether, when, and why boyfriends and fiancés may or may not similarly qualify as refugees pursuant to IIRIRA § 601(a).
Shi Liang Lin, 416 F.3d at 192 (emphases added).
Thus, in remanding, the Shi Liang Lin panel plainly assumed that the BIA’s ruling in C-Y-Z- was based on a construction of § 601(a), and accordingly, requested that the BIA explain how § 601(a) might plausibly be read in such a manner. Consistent with these instructions, the BIA’s response in S-L-L- focused on the scope of § 601(a). See S-L-L-, 24 I. & N. Dec. at 1 (“The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has remanded this case with a request that we further explain our rationale in Matter of C-Y-Z-, ‘for construing IIRIRA § 601(a) to provide that the “forced sterilization of one spouse on account of a ground protected under the Act is an act of persecution against the other spouse” ....”’ (internal citation omitted)); id. at 4 (“[W]e reaffirm our holding in Matter of C-Y-Z-.... ”).
Perhaps sensing that § 601(a)’s text had little to offer, however, the BIA’s decision in S-L-L-provided little analysis of that text. Instead, the BIA asserted, conclu-sorily, that its decision in C-Y-Z- “reflects the significant tensions inherent in *342the IIRIRA amendment”5 and that “[t]here is no clear or obvious answer to the scope of the protections afforded by the amendment to partners of persons forced to submit to an abortion or sterilization.” S-L-L-, 24 I. & N. Dec. at 4. The BIA did not hint at what these “tensions” might plausibly be, or why the plain language of § 601(a) should not be taken as establishing the proper scope of “the IIRI-RA amendment.” Instead, the BIA “reaffirm[ed][its] holding in Matter of C-Y-Z-,” id., largely on the basis of stare decisis and Congress’s supposed acquiescence.
It is the BIA’s reticence to engage with § 601(a)’s text — and the resulting ambiguity in the BIA’s opinion in S-L-L-that the concurring opinions now seek to convert into an argument that S-L-L- was based, not on § 601(a), but on the general definition of “refugee” found in § 1101(a)(42)(A). It is true that, at one point in S-L-L-, the BIA obscurely remarked that “[a]lthough there is no specific reference in the statutory definition of a refugee to a husband’s claim based on harm inflicted upon his wife, the general principles regarding nexus and level of harm apply in determining such a claim.” S-L-L-, 24 I. & N. Dec. at 5.
But this phrase cannot, I believe, establish — as the concurring opinions would have it — -that the BIA’s decision in S-L-L-was based on the general terms “persecution” and “political opinion” found in § 1101(a)(42)(A). And, even if it did, it would not do so clearly (as required by Chenery II). Indeed, one can say, as to that: manifestly not.
Notably, in its very next breath, after using the nexus phrase relied on by the concurrers, the BIA in S-L-L- stated that it was applying “general principles requiring nexus and level of harm for past persecution in assessing a claim under the IIR-IRA amendment.” Id. (emphasis added). It is permissible to read § 601(a) in this way, the BIA argued, because “[although the wife is obviously the individual subjected to the abortion procedure, Congress was concerned not only with the offensive assault upon the woman, but also with the obtrusive government interference into a married couple’s decisions regarding children and family.” Id. at 6. Therefore, the BIA concludes, “[wjhen the government intervenes in the private affairs of a married couple to force an abortion or sterilization, it persecutes the married couple as an entity.” Id. (emphasis added). It seems to me patent that the BIA reached this conclusion under § 601(a), and not § 1101(a)(42)(A).
2
In my view, then, the BIA’s decisions in C-Y-Z- and S-L-L- were grounded in a (mistaken) belief that, based on an “entity theory” of persecution, spouses of those directly victimized by coercive family planning policies could themselves become directly eligible for asylum under § 601(a). And it is not enough for the concurring opinions to cast doubt on my conclusion; Chenery II’s “clarity corollary” requires that the agency make clear its decision to rest upon a purported ground. Thus, to restate my problem with the concurring opinions: They would use the fact that the BIA refused to engage clearly with the text of § 601(a) as a basis for concluding that the BIA was relying on something else. But the incompatibility of this approach with Chenery II is apparent.
Moreover, the (at best) ambiguousness of the BIA’s decision in S-L-L- results in precisely the problems adverted to in Chenery II. For it is far from clear that, had the BIA focused on the general defini*343tion of § 1101(a)(42)(A), the agency would have preserved C-Y-Z-s rule in its current form. That is, had the BIA been asked to examine, not § 601(a)’s automatic-eligibility rule, but instead the more general definition of “refugee,” it is quite possible that the BIA would have come up with a different per se rule, and perhaps even one that would have avoided the many problems inherent in its C-Y-Z-approach. See supra at 8-9.
Under the concurring opinions’s approach, we are unlikely to know. For, by reading the agency’s opinion as deciding that which it did not decide — and certainly did not decide clearly — the concurring opinions, in effect, preclude the agency from thinking deeply and fully about the matter. And that is the very thing which the clarity requirement of Chenery II is meant to make the agency do.
Ill
In the end, as at the beginning, the BIA read us to ask — what we in fact asked: whether C-Y-Z-s rule could be based upon § 601(a)’s text, and if so, what its reasons were. The agency could, under our remand, have turned more broadly to § 1101(a)(42)(A). It didn’t, and it certainly didn’t do so clearly. Today, we properly reject the BIA’s ruling interpreting the coverage of § 601(a). But in the spirit of Ventura, Thomas, and our own tradition of sending things back to the BIA for a first reading, we should now ask the BIA something that it has never been asked by any court: What would you do under § 1101(a) (IS,) (A), given that § 601(a) does not give you the authority to do what you did in C-Y-Z- and S-L-L-?6
We do not know what answer the BIA would give to that question for the simplest of reasons. The agency has never been specifically asked. And we should not, indeed cannot properly, assume that what it would say in response- — one way or another — would be either a reasonable or an unreasonable interpretation of the statute. Moreover, since it is possible that such interpretation might have covered Zhen Hua Dong, I cannot concur with the majority and concurrences that his case is now hopeless.
The sad thing is that, in their rush to reach a result in terms of who gets asylum and who does not, both the majority and the concurrers sanction bad law and bad practices with respect to our relationship with the BIA. The reason they do this is *344certainly understandable. But it is all unnecessary. It’s just being in a hurry.
ifc * * %
For all these reasons, while I concur with the majority opinion insofar as it (1) dismisses the petition of Xian Zou for lack of jurisdiction; (2) denies the petition of Shi Liang Lin as moot; and (3) persuasively interprets 8 U.S.C. § 1158(c)(2)(A) as being limited to a “fundamental change” in country conditions, I must respectfully dissent from the premature denial of Zhen Hua Dong’s petition.

. See Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984).

. The question of whether, as a matter of Chevron Step Two "reasonableness” review, the BIA could base its C-Y-Z- decision on § 1101(a)(42)(A), is arguably neither a pure question of fact, nor of statutory interpretation. And the extent to which such mixed questions may be resolved by a Court of Appeals, without first remanding to the agency for its consideration, has not been clearly settled by the Supreme Court. Compare Thomas, 126 S.Ct. at 1615 ("[T]he proper course, except in rare circumstances, is to remand to the agency for additional investigation or explanation.” (quoting Ventura, 537 U.S. at 16, 123 S.Ct. 353) (internal quotation marks omitted)) with id. (requiring remand, and observing that “[t]he matter requires determining the facts and deciding whether the facts as found fall within a statutory term”); Hussain v. Gonzales, 477 F.3d 153, 157-58 (4th Cir.2007) (distinguishing between factual issues not considered by the BIA, and statuto*338ry issues, and reasoning that Ventura and Thomas were directed only toward factual issues); Fernandez-Ruiz v. Gonzales, 466 F.3d 1121, 1132-35 (9th Cir.2006) (considering a variety of factors — including the fact that the issue being decided would, following a remand to the BIA, have been reviewed by the court de novo anyway — in concluding that the Thomas-Ventura remand rule did not apply to the particular issue in question); Ucelo-Gomez, 464 F.3d at 170 ("[I]f a reviewing court can state with assured confidence (absent agency guidance as to its protectability under the INA) that a group would or would not under any reasonable scenario qualify as a 'particular social group,’ it need not remand, and may rule on the issue in the first instance.”).

. To cite just one of the many possibilities which the majority prematurely forecloses: *339had the BIA not relied on § 601(a)'s automatic persecution rule, but instead focused on the general notion of "persecution,” the agency might have interpreted § 1101(a)(42)(A) as providing (1) that partners who had tried to marry, and were prevented from doing so, but who stayed together, are jointly eligible for asylum (which conclusion would both (a) promote the congressional policy of keeping families together, and (b) extend asylum eligibility to individuals not already covered by § 601(a)); but (2) that husbands who are legally married at the time of a wife's forced abortion, but who choose to leave their wives behind for good, are not.

. I am mindful that the Supreme Court has cautioned that respect for the role and expertise of agencies does not "require that we convert judicial review of agency action into a ping-pong game,” and that, therefore, remand is not required when it “would be an idle and useless formality.” NLRB v. Wyman-Gordon Co., 394 U.S. 759, 766 n. 6, 89 S.Ct. 1426, 22 L.Ed.2d 709 (1969); see also Li Zu Guan v. INS, 453 F.3d 129, 135-38 (2d Cir.2006) (discussing futility standards); Alam v. Gonzales, 438 F.3d 184, 187-88 (2d Cir.2006) (per curiam) (same). Moreover, and relatedly, the Supreme Court has clarified that a reviewing court must "uphold a decision of less than ideal clarity if the agency’s path may reasonably be discerned.” Bowman Transp., Inc. v. Arkansas-Best Freight Sys., Inc., 419 U.S. 281, 286, 95 S.Ct. 438, 42 L.Ed.2d 447 (1974); see also Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43, 103 S.Ct. 2856, 77 L.Ed.2d 443 (1983) (same).
But, regardless of whether these cases, which limit the necessity to remand, are understood to be "exceptions” to the Chenery and Ventura-Thomas requirements, or merely a reflection of the deeper truth that formulaic statements cannot substitute for sound judgment in particular cases, see Li Hua Lin v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 453 F.3d 99, 112 (2d Cir.2006), it remains clear on which side of the line the case before us falls. We simply do not know — and, because the majority and concurring opinions make it almost impossible for the BIA to consider the general language of § 1101(a)(42)(A) in the first instance, in relation to spouses and partners of directly victimized persons, we are not likely to learn — how the BIA would have interpreted § 1101(a)(42)(A) had it been asked to do so. This is not a case in which the agency’s path, while not perfectly clear, can "reasonably be discerned”; nor is it a case in which the agency’s likely response to a remand can be predicted with confidence. Rather, it is a case in which (1) the BIA has not yet spoken — at all, and certainly not clearly — on § 1101(a)(42)(A)’s breadth in this area, and (2) our court has, unfortunately, chosen to make further inquiry impossible.

. The "IIRIRA amendment” refers, of course, te) § 601(a).

. The majority, attempting to answer my opinion, says, at footnote 15, that remanding Zhen Hua Dong’s case to the BIA would be engaging, in useless “ping pong.” With great respect, the majority in that footnote simply repeats its conflation of two quite separate things. It is certainly true that the BIA-has had multiple occasions to consider the "spousal” question under § 601(a), and has answered (incorrectly, we all agree) that per se persecutee status is available to spouses under that section. But it has never been asked what the status of spouses or of people situated like Zhen Hua Dong would be under the general terms of § 1101(a)(42)(A), if § 601(a) did not cover spouses. And, in view of its consistent — but incorrect, we today hold — rulings that § 601(a) did apply to spouses, the BIA never had any reason to address that question on its own. The con-currers, nevertheless, act as if the BIA had addressed the question and had validly given spouses per se persecutee status under § 1101(a)(42)(A). The majority holds that even if the BIA were to consider the question, it could not validly say that spouses et al. were covered per se. Both the majority and the concurrers seem to me to overstep, and for precisely the reasons indicated in Ventura and Thomas. It is not proper for appellate courts to speak for the BIA and to decide the validity of that “speech,” before the agency has had a full and focused opportunity to make its position clear. On § 1101(a)(42)(A), the agency has not yet had that opportunity. It is not ping pong when only one player has been invited to the relevant table.