Court Opinion

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Date Created: 2024-03-06 16:01:32.179089+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:29:07.415765
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USCA11 Case: 19-15077    Document: 64-1      Date Filed: 03/06/2024    Page: 1 of 49

                                                               [PUBLISH]

                                    In the

                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 19-15077
                           ____________________

        KARASTAN L. EDWARDS,
                                                                Petitioner,
        versus
        U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL,

                                                               Respondent.

                           ____________________

                    Petition for Review of a Decision of the
                         Board of Immigration Appeals
                           Agency No. A095-146-708
                           ____________________
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        2                     Opinion of the Court                 19-15077

        Before JORDAN, NEWSOM, and ED CARNES, Circuit Judges.
        ED CARNES, Circuit Judge:
               After considering Karastan Edwards’ petition for rehearing
        and the government’s response to it, we grant Edwards’ petition,
        withdraw our previous opinion dated December 23, 2022, and
        published at 56 F.4th 951, and substitute this opinion for it. This
        opinion is in all material respects the same as our earlier one, ex-
        cept that we explain in more detail why we must apply the retro-
        activity rule from Yu v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 568 F.3d 1328, 1330 (11th
        Cir. 2009). See Part III.A., infra.
                Karastan Edwards petitioned for review of the Board of
        Immigration Appeals’ dismissal of his appeal from an immigra-
        tion judge’s removal order. That order was based on the IJ’s de-
        termination that Edwards is removable, ineligible for cancellation
        of removal, and ineligible for asylum because he has been con-
        victed of an “aggravated felony” as the Immigration and Natural-
        ization Act deﬁnes the term. The IJ also determined that Edwards
        is ineligible for withholding of removal and Convention Against
        Torture relief. Edwards challenges all those determinations.
              I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
              This case traveled a long and winding path before it ended
        up here. That path has included multiple appeals from the IJ to
        the BIA, multiple appeals from the BIA to this Court, multiple
        remands from this Court to the BIA, and multiple remands from
        the BIA back to the IJ. We will summarize that procedural history
        and some of the factual background.
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        19-15077              Opinion of the Court                        3

                   A. Initial Immigration Judge Removal Order
                Edwards is a native and citizen of Jamaica who was admit-
        ted to the United States in 2002 and who became a lawful perma-
        nent resident in 2003. In February 2012 he pleaded guilty to and
        was convicted of the Georgia crime of family violence battery in
        violation of O.C.G.A. § 16-5-23.1. For that crime Edwards was
        sentenced to 12 months conﬁnement, but he was allowed to serve
        all of it on probation.
                In March 2015 the Department of Homeland Security initi-
        ated removal proceedings against Edwards on the theory that his
        Georgia family violence battery conviction was an “aggravated
        felony” under the INA, making him removable. Edwards chal-
        lenged that classiﬁcation of his crime. He also ﬁled applications
        for asylum, for withholding of removal, and for CAT relief. In
        those applications, he claimed membership in two social groups:
        “relatives of opponents of the pervasive gang and corrupt situa-
        tion” in Jamaica, and “returning Jamaicans who have spent
        lengthy periods of time in industrialized developed aﬄuent coun-
        tries.”
               At a removal hearing, Edwards testiﬁed about those two as-
        serted social groups. He testiﬁed that his mother, who lives in
        Jamaica, is part of a community organization that tries to positive-
        ly inﬂuence children and that she was targeted and threatened by
        gangs because of it. Another reason she was targeted, according
        to Edwards, was because gang members believed that they could
        use her to get money from him. Edwards also testiﬁed that while
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                19-15077

        visiting Jamaica in 2011 he had twice been robbed by gang mem-
        bers and was cut on the shoulder by a knife during one of those
        robberies. He claimed that he had reported that incident to the
        police and identiﬁed one of the perpetrators, but the police did
        nothing about it.
               An immigration judge found that the Georgia family vio-
        lence battery conviction for which Edwards had been convicted
        was an aggravated felony under the INA, which made him re-
        movable and statutorily ineligible for both cancellation of remov-
        al and asylum. The IJ also found that neither of the social groups
        Edwards claimed membership in made him eligible for withhold-
        ing of removal. The claimed social group of Jamaicans returning
        to Jamaica was not one “perceived by Jamaican society as sharing
        any common characteristics,” and gangs targeted those people
        only because they might have money. As for the social group of
        having family members who oppose gangs and corruption, the IJ
        found that Edwards had not shown that his family relationships
        would cause him any harm if he returned to Jamaica.
               The IJ also determined that Edwards was ineligible for CAT
        relief because he had not shown that he more likely than not
        would be tortured in Jamaica. In doing so, the IJ noted evidence
        of the Jamaican government’s “eﬀorts to combat corruption in
        the police and security forces as well as abuses that may rise to the
        level of torture,” from which the IJ inferred that the government
        had not participated in or acquiesced to any torture.
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        19-15077              Opinion of the Court                         5

         B. First Appeal to the BIA, First State Court Sentence Modiﬁca-
             tion Order, and First Remand to the Immigration Judge
               After Edwards appealed the IJ’s order to the BIA, and while
        that appeal was still pending, he ﬁled a motion to remand the case
        to the IJ. He asked for a remand because after ﬁling the appeal he
        had gotten a Georgia state court judge to issue an order “modify-
        ing” his sentence for the Georgia family violence battery convic-
        tion.
               Edwards’ motion to the state court requesting a sentence
        modiﬁcation had focused exclusively on the immigration conse-
        quences of his 12-month sentence. The motion informed the
        court that Edwards’ “misdemeanor crime in Georgia has signiﬁ-
        cant collateral eﬀects on his status as a legal permanent resident
        of the United States” and that “due to the 12 month sentence, his
        misdemeanor oﬀense is viewed as an aggravated felony by the
        immigration courts.” That 12-month sentence, the motion told
        the state court, “will result in his removal from the United States
        and will leave his U.S. Citizen spouse and son without their pri-
        mary ﬁnancial and emotional support.” It continued: “Further,
        [Edwards] shows this is harsh and would not be in the best inter-
        est of himself or society and that same would be detrimental to
        all.” In his motion, Edwards acknowledged that he had already
        “completed his sentence as required by the court,” but he still re-
        quested that sentence be modiﬁed “from 12 months probation to
        11 months probation, a more reasonable judgment in order that
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        6                     Opinion of the Court                 19-15077

        [Edwards] may continue his contribution to society and his fami-
        ly.”
               The district attorney’s oﬃce for the county where Edwards
        had been convicted consented to Edwards’ motion, and the state
        court granted it. The order did not give a reason for granting the
        motion other than stating that the “motion ha[d] been read and
        considered by the Court, and the State ha[d] an opportunity to be
        heard on the matter and ha[d] no objection to” it. The court or-
        dered Edwards’ already-served sentence to “be modiﬁed from 12
        months probation to 11 months and 27 days probation.” And the
        order stated that: “All other terms and conditions of the sentence
        shall remain in full force and eﬀect as originally imposed.” The
        state court issued that order in August 2015, about two-and-a-half
        years after Edwards had ﬁnished serving the 12-month sentence
        that had been imposed on him in February 2012.
               In light of the state court’s sentence modiﬁcation order, the
        BIA granted Edwards’ motion to remand to the IJ. After consider-
        ing the state court order, the IJ again ordered Edwards removed.
        It determined that both the modiﬁcation order and the original
        sentence were entitled to full faith and credit, but it interpreted
        the modiﬁcation order as changing only Edwards’ sentence of
        probation, not his sentence of conﬁnement. Under the IJ’s inter-
        pretation, Edwards’ modiﬁed sentence was “12 months or one
        year of conﬁnement with 11 months and 27 days of such sentence
        suspended in favor of probation.” Based on that interpretation of
        the modiﬁcation order, the IJ determined that Edwards’ sentence,
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        19-15077              Opinion of the Court                        7

        even as revised, still amounted to a term of imprisonment of at
        least one year, which meant he had been convicted of an aggra-
        vated felony. That made Edwards removable, ineligible for cancel-
        lation of removal, and ineligible for asylum. The IJ also incorpo-
        rated in the order the earlier decisions about Edwards being ineli-
        gible for withholding of removal and CAT relief.
        C. Second Appeal to the BIA, First Appeal to this Court, Second
        State Court Sentence Modiﬁcation Order, and Second Remand to
                            the Immigration Judge
                Edwards appealed the IJ’s second order to the BIA, which
        aﬃrmed it in all respects and dismissed the appeal. In doing so,
        the BIA found no clear error in the IJ’s interpretation of the state
        court sentence modiﬁcation order or in the determination that
        Edwards had been convicted of an aggravated felony despite that
        state court order. The BIA also aﬃrmed the IJ’s determination
        that Edwards was ineligible for withholding of removal. It “dis-
        cern[ed] no clear error in the ﬁnding that the record does not re-
        ﬂect adequate evidence that the respondent would be targeted be-
        cause he is a returnee from the United States or due to his family
        ties.” It also noted record evidence that “the criminal gangs that
        the respondent fears in Jamaica target victims because they seek
        money, and not due to the fact they come from the United States
        or otherwise.” Finally, the BIA “aﬃrm[ed] as lacking clear error
        the [IJ’s] ﬁnding that [Edwards] has not established that it is more
        likely than not that he would be tortured in Jamaica or that he
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        8                     Opinion of the Court                 19-15077

        could not relocate within Jamaica and avoid the likelihood of such
        harm.”
               Edwards petitioned this Court for review of the BIA order.
        But while that petition was pending, in February 2017 he obtained
        another state court sentence modiﬁcation order. It resulted from
        his second motion requesting a modiﬁcation, which was similar to
        his ﬁrst motion, borrowing much of its language. Like the ﬁrst
        modiﬁcation motion, the second one focused exclusively on the
        immigration consequences that Edwards was facing. It also al-
        luded to the IJ’s interpretation of the ﬁrst modiﬁcation order and
        asked the state court to “clarify that the original sentence has in
        fact been modiﬁed from 12 months conﬁnement allowed to be served on
        probation to 11 month[s] and 27 days conﬁnement allowed to be served
        on probation.” Edwards asked for this second modiﬁcation, as he
        had the ﬁrst one, “in order that he may continue his contribution
        to society and his family.” In other words, so that he would not
        be removed from this country.
               The district attorney’s oﬃce, as it had with Edward’s ﬁrst
        sentence modiﬁcation motion, consented to his second one, and
        only two days after Edwards had ﬁled that second motion the
        state court granted it. As with the ﬁrst modiﬁcation order, the
        state court gave no reason for this second one other than noting
        that Edwards “has ﬁled a new motion to modify and clarify; and
        said motion having been considered by the Court and the State
        having no objection, the Court grants the motion.” This time the
        state court modiﬁed Edwards’ already-served sentence “to 11
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        19-15077              Opinion of the Court                       9

        months and 27 days conﬁnement allowed to be served on proba-
        tion.” Exactly what Edwards had requested. The state court is-
        sued the second modiﬁcation order in February 2017, about four
        years after Edwards had ﬁnished serving the 12-month sentence
        that had been imposed on him in February 2012.
               On the same day the state court issued the second modiﬁ-
        cation order, Edwards ﬁled with the BIA a motion to reopen, and
        in May 2017 the BIA granted it. We dismissed the petition that
        had been pending with us. The BIA remanded the case to the IJ,
        who again –– for the third time –– ordered Edwards removed.
        The IJ determined that the second state court sentence modiﬁca-
        tion order did not change Edwards’ conviction from being for an
        aggravated felony under federal immigration law. Summarizing
        BIA precedent, the IJ concluded that the original sentence im-
        posed on Edwards controlled because the new modiﬁcation order
        did not void it. Once again, the IJ incorporated by reference his
        earlier decisions that Edwards is ineligible for withholding of re-
        moval and CAT relief, ﬁnding that no new evidence had changed
        those decisions.
          D. Third Appeal to the BIA and Second Appeal to this Court
               Edwards again appealed to the BIA, which aﬃrmed the IJ
        in all respects and dismissed the appeal. In doing so, the BIA
        treated the second state court modiﬁcation order as an order clari-
        fying Edwards’ sentence and found that under this Court’s prece-
        dent the “clariﬁcation” had no legal eﬀect for immigration pur-
        poses. That meant Edwards had still been convicted of an aggra-
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                 19-15077

        vated felony, and as a result he was still ineligible for cancellation
        of removal or asylum. As for withholding of removal and CAT
        relief, the BIA reiterated the same reasons it had previously given
        for aﬃrming the IJ’s determination that Edwards was ineligible
        for both.
               Edwards petitioned this Court for review. But while that
        petition was pending the government ﬁled an unopposed motion
        to remand to the BIA for it to reconsider the state court’s second
        modiﬁcation order. The reason the government gave for the re-
        quest was that the BIA may have treated the “modiﬁcation” order
        as a “clariﬁcation” order, which might have been contrary to BIA
        precedent as it stood at the time. We granted the motion.
         E. Intervening Agency Authority: Matter of Thomas and Thomp-
                                     son
               Before the BIA decided Edwards’ case on remand, the At-
        torney General issued a controlling decision, Matter of Thomas, 27
        I. & N. Dec. 674 (A.G. 2019). Up until then, to determine the
        immigration eﬀect of state court orders the BIA applied diﬀerent
        tests depending on the type of order at issue. If the order “vacat-
        ed” a conviction based on a defect in the proceedings, the BIA
        treated that action as having legal eﬀect for immigration purpos-
        es. Id. at 675. If the order “modiﬁed” a sentence, it was given full
        faith and credit regardless of the reason for the modiﬁcation,
        meaning the sentence had legal eﬀect for immigration purposes.
        Id. And if the order “clariﬁed” the sentence, the BIA used a multi-
        factor test to determine if it had any immigration eﬀect. Id. The
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        19-15077              Opinion of the Court                     11

        diﬀerent treatment given to “clariﬁcation” and “modiﬁcation” or-
        ders had led in two BIA cases to the two petitioners, whose situa-
        tions were materially identical, getting opposite outcomes based
        on nothing more than the labels that the state courts had given
        the order altering each petitioner’s sentence. See id. at 679.
               The Attorney General certiﬁed to himself those two BIA
        decisions “to address these inconsistencies and to clarify the ap-
        propriate treatment under the INA.” Id. The “appropriate treat-
        ment under the INA,” according to the Attorney General, was
        that the BIA precedent about the distinction between “clariﬁca-
        tion” and “modiﬁcation” orders needed to be overruled. See id. at
        674–75, 690. The Attorney General interpreted the relevant statu-
        tory text as meaning that Congress’ intent was that all:
              state-court orders that modify, clarify, or otherwise
              alter a criminal alien’s sentence . . . will be given
              eﬀect for immigration purposes only if based on a
              procedural or substantive defect in the underlying
              criminal proceeding; these orders will have no eﬀect
              for immigration purposes if based on reasons unre-
              lated to the merits of the underlying criminal pro-
              ceeding, such as rehabilitation or the avoidance of
              immigration consequences.
        Id. at 674, 690. So the labels a court put on the order describing
        the action the court was taking would no longer determine the
        immigration eﬀect of the order. All that would matter is wheth-
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        12                    Opinion of the Court                 19-15077

        er the order was issued based on a procedural or substantive de-
        fect in the underlying criminal proceeding.
                              F. Final BIA Decision
               After Matter of Thomas overruled the “clariﬁcation” and
        “modiﬁcation” regime, the BIA was left with the task of applying
        to this case the new regime focused on procedural or substantive
        defects. Doing that, the BIA noted that Edwards “has pointed to
        no evidence in the record to reﬂect that his criminal proceedings
        were marred by procedural or substantive defect.” As a result,
        under Matter of Thomas the modiﬁcation order had no eﬀect for
        immigration purposes; it did not change the fact that Edwards
        had been convicted of an aggravated felony under the INA.
               The BIA also adopted, yet again, its past reasoning that
        Edwards was ineligible for withholding of removal and CAT re-
        lief. It reiterated, among other things, that Edwards had not
        proved that he would be harmed because of membership in his
        claimed social groups and that the IJ “did not clearly err in ﬁnding
        inadequate evidence to support a ﬁnding that it was more likely
        than not that [Edwards] would be tortured in Jamaica.” The BIA
        dismissed Edwards’ appeal.
              In his petition to us, Edwards challenges the BIA’s determi-
        nation that he was convicted of an aggravated felony. His chal-
        lenge attacks the validity of the Attorney General’s Matter of
        Thomas decision, including the reasonableness of its statutory in-
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        19-15077                   Opinion of the Court                               13

        terpretation. Edwards also contends that the BIA erred in ﬁnding
        him ineligible for withholding of removal and CAT relief. 1
                            II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW
                “When the BIA issues its own opinion, we review only the
        decision of the BIA, except to the extent the BIA expressly adopts
        the IJ’s decision.” Sanchez Jimenez v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 492 F.3d 1223,
        1230–31 (11th Cir. 2007) (quotation marks and ellipsis omitted).
        “We review questions of law de novo, including whether a convic-
        tion qualiﬁes as an aggravated felony under the Immigration and
        Nationality Act.” Talamantes-Enriquez v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 12 F.4th
        1340, 1347 (11th Cir. 2021) (quotation marks omitted). We also
        review de novo questions of statutory interpretation, but we do so
        through the lens of Chevron, which dictates that the Attorney
        General and the BIA are “entitled to deference in interpreting
        ambiguous provisions of the INA.” Negusie v. Holder, 555 U.S. 511,
        516 (2009) (citing Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc.,
        467 U.S. 837, 842–843 (1984)); see also I.N.S. v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526

        1        In addition, Edwards contends that the IJ should have recused him-
        self and that the BIA erred in determining that the IJ did not need to recuse.
        We have reviewed this contention and determined that it is entirely without
        merit and warrants no further discussion. Cf., e.g., United States v. Iriele, 977
        F.3d 1155, 1165 n.6 (11th Cir. 2020) (“We will not discuss why those scatter-
        shot contentions lack merit.”); Tompkins v. Moore, 193 F.3d 1327, 1331 n.1
        (11th Cir. 1999) (“The issues we do not write more about merit no further
        discussion here beyond the statement that we agree with the district
        court . . . .”); Dominguez v. Tom James Co., 113 F.3d 1188, 1190 (11th Cir. 1997)
        (“None of the Company's other issues that we have listed above merit any
        further discussion.”).
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        14                     Opinion of the Court                  19-15077

        U.S. 415, 425 (1999) (recognizing that “judicial deference to the
        Executive Branch is especially appropriate in the immigration
        context”); Herrera v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 811 F.3d 1298, 1300 (11th Cir.
        2016). “Congress has charged the Attorney General with admin-
        istering the INA, and a ‘ruling by the Attorney General with re-
        spect to all questions of law shall be controlling.’” Negusie, 555
        U.S. at 516–17 (quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1)). In light of that and
        other considerations, the Supreme Court has held not only that
        Chevron deference applies, but also that “[j]udicial deference in the
        immigration context is of special importance.” Id.
               Under Chevron, if the statutory text is unambiguous and
        answers the question presented, we apply the text according to its
        terms with no need for deference. See Hincapie-Zapata v. U.S. Att’y
        Gen., 977 F.3d 1197, 1200 (11th Cir. 2020); Arevalo v. U.S. Att’y Gen.,
        872 F.3d 1184, 1188 (11th Cir. 2017). But “if the statute is silent or
        ambiguous with respect to the speciﬁc issue presented, we must
        then determine whether the agency’s interpretation is reasonable
        or based on a permissible construction of the statute.” Arevalo,
        872 F.3d at 1188 (citing Chevron, 467 U.S. at 843); see also Amezcua-
        Preciado v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 943 F.3d 1337, 1341 (11th Cir. 2019).
               We review the BIA’s factual ﬁndings under the “highly def-
        erential” substantial evidence standard, under which we may re-
        verse only if the “record not only supports reversal, but compels
        it.” Kazemzadeh v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 577 F.3d 1341, 1350 (11th Cir.
        2009) (quotation marks omitted).
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        19-15077               Opinion of the Court                       15

                      III. AGGRAVATED FELONY ISSUE
               Edwards challenges the BIA’s determination that he was
        convicted of an aggravated felony. If he was, he is statutorily inel-
        igible for cancellation of removal and asylum. See 8 U.S.C.
        § 1158(b)(2)(B)(i); Talamantes-Enriquez, 12 F.4th at 1347. An “ag-
        gravated felony” is a “crime of violence . . . for which the term of
        imprisonment [was] at least one year.” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(F).
        The meaning of “term of imprisonment” and the other deﬁni-
        tional components of an “aggravated felony” are matters of fed-
        eral law. See Talamantes-Enriquez, 12 F.4th at 1354 (“[W]e are not
        bound by a state judge’s interpretation of a state court sentence
        order because we are dealing with federal law and federal statutes,
        not state law and state statutes.”); Herrera, 811 F.3d at 1301 (“Be-
        cause words in federal statutes reﬂect federal understandings, the
        statement of the Georgia court in its order of clariﬁcation that
        [the petitioner] was not sentenced to any conﬁnement was due no
        weight in his immigration proceeding.”) (quotation marks and
        citation omitted; alteration adopted); United States v. Ayala-Gomez,
        255 F.3d 1314, 1319 (11th Cir. 2001) (“Words in federal statutes re-
        ﬂect federal understandings, absent an explicit statement to the
        contrary, even if a state uses the word diﬀerently.”).
               Edwards does not dispute that his Georgia family violence
        battery conviction was for a crime of violence; what he challenges
        is the BIA’s determination that his term of imprisonment was for
        at least one year. Cf. United States v. Garza-Mendez, 735 F.3d 1284,
        1287 (11th Cir. 2013) (“On appeal, [the defendant] does not con-
        tend that his state conviction [of Georgia family violence battery]
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        16                     Opinion of the Court                19-15077

        is not a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. § 16; instead he argues
        that he was not sentenced to an imprisonment term of at least
        one year.”) (quotation marks omitted; alteration adopted). Ed-
        wards makes that challenge despite the fact that under our prece-
        dent his original sentence of 12 months conﬁnement allowed to
        be served on probation is undoubtedly a term of imprisonment
        of at least one year. See Talamantes-Enriquez, 12 F.4th at 1353
        (“Our precedent establishes that [the petitioner] was sentenced to
        a term of imprisonment for at least one year for purposes of §
        1101(a)(43)(F), even if he was permitted to serve part or all of that
        sentence on probation.”).
                Edwards’ position is that what counts for immigration pur-
        poses is not his original sentence of 12 months but the modiﬁed
        sentence of 11 months and 27 days that resulted from the last
        state court order. Because that contention is directly foreclosed
        by the Attorney General’s Matter of Thomas decision, Edwards at-
        tacks that decision’s legality. He makes two broad contentions
        about it: that the Attorney General lacked the authority to issue
        Matter of Thomas at all; and that even if he had the authority, Mat-
        ter of Thomas is an unreasonable interpretation of the INA.
                      A. The Attorney General’s Authority
                Congress has provided that on matters of immigration law
        “determination and ruling by the Attorney General with respect
        to all questions of law shall be controlling.” 8 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1).
        As we have recognized: “Congress has vested in the Attorney
        General the authority to decide legal questions arising under the
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        19-15077              Opinion of the Court                       17

        immigration laws.” Farquharson v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 246 F.3d 1317,
        1323 n.7 (11th Cir. 2001). “The Attorney General has delegated
        this function to the Board,” but he still “retains the authority to
        review ﬁnal decisions of the BIA” and overrule them, as he did
        here. Id.; see also 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(h); Yu, 568 F.3d at 1333 (“The
        fact that the BIA had previously construed the statute diﬀerent-
        ly . . . did not prohibit the Attorney General from holding other-
        wise.”). Not only that, but the Attorney General can review and
        overrule BIA decisions upon his own initiative, see Farquharson,
        246 F.3d at 1323 n.7; 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(h)(1)(i), as he did here.
                Edwards takes issue with the Attorney General’s decision
        to use adjudication instead of rulemaking in this instance. But it
        “is well established . . . that agencies have discretion to choose
        whether to proceed by rulemaking or adjudication.” RTC Transp.,
        Inc. v. I.C.C., 731 F.2d 1502, 1505 (11th Cir. 1984). That “is true
        even when adjudication is used to announce new policy after
        years of contrary precedent.” Id. The Attorney General’s choice
        to overrule BIA precedent through the decision in Matter of
        Thomas instead of through rulemaking was well within his statu-
        tory authority.
               Edwards alternatively argues that the Matter of Thomas de-
        cision cannot be applied retroactively to him. But we have already
        rejected this kind of retroactivity argument. We addressed it in a
        case where the BIA had dismissed a petitioner’s appeal based on
        “the Attorney General’s intervening precedential decision” that
        had overruled BIA precedent. Yu, 568 F.3d at 1330. We held that
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        18                     Opinion of the Court                19-15077

        the “BIA did not retroactively apply a new law but instead applied
        the Attorney General’s determination of what the law
        had always meant.” Id. at 1333 (quotation marks omitted).
               Edwards contends that, despite our precedent in Yu, we
        should conduct a balancing test based on SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332
        U.S. 194 (1947), to determine whether Matter of Thomas should be
        retroactively applied to him. Our predecessor Court did apply the
        Chenery balancing test, but it was in a case reviewing a diﬀerent
        agency’s decision. See McDonald v. Watt, 653 F.2d 1035 (5th Cir.
        Unit A Aug. 21, 1981).
               McDonald was decided long before Yu, and it might appear
        that our prior panel precedent rule requires us to follow that ear-
        lier decision. See, e.g., United States v. Smith, 201 F.3d 1317, 1322
        (11th Cir. 2000) (“It is the ﬁrmly established rule of this Circuit
        that each succeeding panel is bound by the holding of the ﬁrst
        panel to address an issue of law, unless and until that holding is
        overruled en banc, or by the Supreme Court.”) (quoting United
        States v. Hogan, 986 F.2d 1364, 1369 (11th Cir.1993)) (cleaned up).
        But what might appear is not what actually is.
               We’re still bound to follow Yu, and here’s why. The
        McDonald decision held that a Department of Interior adjudicato-
        ry rule could not be given retroactive eﬀect because the Depart-
        ment’s new interpretation reversed well-established agency prac-
        tice to “the extreme prejudice,” 653 F.2d at 1045, of the plaintiﬀs
        and hundreds of other oil and gas lease applicants who relied on
        the Bureau of Land Management’s past practice when they sub-
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        19-15077               Opinion of the Court                        19

        mitted oﬀers that conformed to that practice but not to the newly
        adopted one. Id. at 1036–37. That earlier decision in McDonald
        does not free us from Yu because McDonald is distinguishable.
               Under the prior panel precedent rule we have a duty to
        reconcile, where possible, prior precedents that appear to be in
        tension. See United States v. Hogan, 986 F.2d 1364, 1369 (11th Cir.
        1993) (“Given the delicate nature of the task, it is not surprising
        that one of the most favored means for resolving an inconsistency
        in circuit precedents is to determine that the inconsistency is
        more apparent than real. A panel of this Court is obligated, if at
        all possible, to distill from apparently conﬂicting prior panel deci-
        sions a basis of reconciliation and to apply that reconciled rule.”);
        see also Corley v. Long-Lewis, Inc., 965 F.3d 1222, 1230 (11th Cir.
        2020) (same).
               Reconciling our two previous decisions is not diﬃcult here.
        Yu is speciﬁc to the immigration context; McDonald involves the
        Bureau of Land Management and the Interior Board of Land Ap-
        peals. McDonald has its own its facts, including extreme prejudice
        to hundreds of oil and gas lease applicants, 653 F.2d at 1036, 1045,
        and any broad statements the opinion made about agency deci-
        sions applying prospectively is limited to those facts. See, e.g., Ed-
        wards v. Prime, Inc., 602 F.3d 1276, 1298 (11th Cir. 2010) (“We have
        pointed out many times that regardless of what a court says in its
        opinion, the decision can hold nothing beyond the facts of that
        case.”) (collecting cases). The facts in McDonald have nothing to
        do with immigration law. More speciﬁcally, the facts in McDonald
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        20                     Opinion of the Court                19-15077

        have nothing to do with 8 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1) and the Attorney
        General’s rulings and determinations about immigration law.
        Whatever McDonald says generally about agency law and the
        Chenery balancing test, it holds nothing about immigration law.
        United States v. Bazantes, 978 F.3d 1227, 1244 (11th Cir. 2020) (“To
        the extent that an earlier decision is distinguishable from the case
        at hand, it may be a prior precedent, but it is not one that can dic-
        tate the result of the current case under the prior precedent
        rule.”).
               In Chenery the Supreme Court reviewed a Securities and
        Exchange Commission order and held that an agency is not lim-
        ited to promulgating rules according to its rulemaking authority
        but also has the authority to establish new rules through adjudica-
        tory orders. See Chenery, 332 U.S. at 199–201. In that context the
        Court stated that when an agency issues an adjudicative decision
        establishing a new rule, “retroactivity must be balanced against
        the mischief of producing a result which is contrary to a statutory
        design or to legal and equitable principles,” and “[i]f that mischief
        is greater than the ill eﬀect of the retroactive application of a new
        standard, it is not the type of retroactivity which is condemned by
        law.” Id. at 203. In McDonald our predecessor Court stated that it
        “accept[ed] the Chenery balancing test as the appropriate inquiry”
        for determining whether the Department of Interior should have
        applied its new adjudicatory rule to the particular facts of that
        case. McDonald, 653 F.2d at 1043.
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        19-15077               Opinion of the Court                        21

               Our decision in the present case does not and cannot con-
        ﬂict with Chenery because we are bound by the later holding in Yu.
        Chenery was decided decades before Yu, and if Yu overlooked or
        misinterpreted Chenery, that would change nothing about its bind-
        ing eﬀect on our panel. See United States v. Fritts, 841 F.3d 937, 942
        (11th Cir. 2016) (“Under this Court’s prior panel precedent rule,
        there is never an exception carved out for overlooked or misinter-
        preted Supreme Court precedent.”); see also Smith v. GTE Corp.,
        236 F.3d 1292, 1303 (11th Cir. 2001) (“[W]e categorically reject any
        exception to the prior panel precedent rule based upon a per-
        ceived defect in the prior panel’s reasoning or analysis as it relates
        to the law in existence at the time.”). And our decision in this
        case does not conﬂict with McDonald’s application of Chenery be-
        cause, for the reasons we’ve discussed, McDonald is distinguishable
        from Yu and doesn’t free us from following Yu. See Bazantes, 978
        F.3d at 1244.
                It’s not the ﬁrst time we’ve followed Yu in an immigration
        case like this one, and some other circuits have done the same.
        See Alvarado v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 984 F.3d 982, 991 (11th Cir. 2020)
        (“Once the Attorney General clariﬁed the meaning of the statuto-
        ry phrase particular social group in Matter of A-B-, [27 I. & N. Dec.
        316 (AG 2018),] that decision became the controlling interpreta-
        tion of the law and was entitled to full retroactive eﬀect in all cas-
        es still open on direct review, regardless of whether the events
        predated the Attorney General’s decision.”) (citing Yu, 568 F.3d at
        1333) (quotation marks omitted); accord Torres v. Holder, 764 F.3d
        152, 158 (2d Cir. 2014), aﬀ’d sub nom. Torres v. Lynch, 578 U.S. 452
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        22                     Opinion of the Court                 19-15077

        (2016) (“In relying on Matter of Bautista [, 25 I. & N. Dec. 616 (BIA
        2011)], the BIA therefore did not retroactively apply a new law but
        instead applied its determination of what the law ‘had always
        meant.’”) (cleaned up) (quoting Yu, 568 F.3d at 1333); id. at 158–59
        (“Once Matter of Bautista issued, that decision became the control-
        ling interpretation of the law and was entitled to full retroactive
        eﬀect in all cases still open on direct review, regardless of whether
        the events predated the decision.”) (cleaned up) (quoting Yu, 568
        F.3d at 1334); Espinal-Andrades v. Holder, 777 F.3d 163, 170 (4th Cir.
        2015) (same); Shou Wei Jin v. Holder, 572 F.3d 392, 397–98 (7th Cir.
        2009) (holding that “[a] change in an agency’s interpretation of
        the law does not constitute a ‘signiﬁcant error’ that justiﬁes the
        exercise of our nunc pro tunc powers” to apply the BIA’s earlier
        precedent to an asylum claim) (citing and quoting Yu, 568 F.3d at
        1332); but see Zaragoza v. Garland, 52 F.4th 1006, 1023 (7th Cir.
        2022) (concluding that retroactive application of the Attorney
        General’s adjudicative decision “can be properly withheld” in
        some cases “when to apply the new rule to past conduct or prior
        events would work a manifest injustice”) (quotation marks omit-
        ted).
               As Judge Jordan points out in his separate concurring opin-
        ion, the Second and Seventh Circuits have not consistently applied
        the retroactivity rule from Yu and have sometimes taken a Chenery
        balancing test approach. See, e.g., Lugo v. Holder, 783 F.3d 119, 121–
        23 (2d Cir. 2015); Negrete-Rodriguez v. Mukasey, 518 F.3d 497, 503–
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        19-15077                  Opinion of the Court                              23

        04 (7th Cir. 2008). And they aren’t the only circuits that have ap-
        plied the Chenery balancing test in immigration cases. 2 See, e.g., De
        Niz Robles v. Lynch, 803 F.3d 1165, 1173–78 (10th Cir. 2015); Francis-
        co-Lopez v. Att’y Gen. U.S., 970 F.3d 431, 436–40 (3d Cir. 2020); Reyes
        v. Garland, 11 F.4th 985, 990–93 (9th Cir. 2021).

        2       Our concurring colleague states that because the Attorney General’s
        Thomas opinion cites Chenery for the proposition that that an agency has the
        authority to announce new interpretations of a statute through rulemaking
        or through adjudication, see Matter of Thomas, 27 I & N Dec. at 688, we can
        “presume[]” that the Attorney General also believes that Chenery would
        “govern with respect to the retroactivity of an interpretive change by adjudi-
        cation.” Concurring Op. at 6 n.2. We disagree.
                When a court (or the Attorney General in an adjudicative decision)
        cites one part of an opinion, that does not amount to an endorsement or
        agreement with every other part of the opinion. Matter of Thomas pin cites
        the Chenery opinion only for the proposition that rulemaking and adjudica-
        tion are equally valid paths to the same destination. And Matter of Thomas
        addresses retroactivity only in terms of state court orders that attempt to al-
        ter immigration consequences with post hoc changes to criminal convictions
        and sentences. See 27 I & N Dec. at 677 (referring to “the immigration con-
        sequences of state-court orders that retroactively alter a criminal conviction
        or sentence”). Matter of Thomas does not hold or even hint anything about
        Chenery’s balancing test and whether it applies to deciding if decisions of the
        Attorney General on immigration matters are retroactive.
               Relying on and agreeing with a decision is not an all or nothing
        proposition. If it were, opinions concurring in part and dissenting in part
        would not exist, yet opinions that do exactly that are abundant in the report-
        ers. We have all written them.
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        24                     Opinion of the Court                19-15077

                Yu cites 8 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1), which seems to give the At-
        torney General the ﬁnal say on questions of immigration law. In
        its entirety, that provision states:
              The Secretary of Homeland Security shall be
              charged with the administration and enforcement of
              this chapter and all other laws relating to the immi-
              gration and naturalization of aliens, except insofar as
              this chapter or such laws relate to the powers, func-
              tions, and duties conferred upon the President, At-
              torney General, the Secretary of State, the oﬃcers
              of the Department of State, or diplomatic or consu-
              lar oﬃcers: Provided, however, That determination
              and ruling by the Attorney General with respect to
              all questions of law shall be controlling.
        8 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1); see also Negusie, 555 U.S. at 516–17 (“Con-
        gress has charged the Attorney General with administering the
        INA, and a ‘ruling by the Attorney General with respect to all
        questions of law shall be controlling.’”). Section 1103(a)(1), as Yu
        holds, may mean that when the Attorney General announces new
        a new decision that is a reasonable interpretation of the INA and
        is entitled to deference, that decision applies retroactively because
        it is “the Attorney General’s determination of what the law ‘ha[s]
        always meant.’” Yu, 568 F.3d at 1333 (quoting Rivers v. Roadway
        Exp., Inc., 511 U.S. 298, 313, n.12 (1994) (explaining that when the
        Supreme Court interprets a statute in a new way, it isn’t changing
        the law but is declaring what the statute has “always meant” and is
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        19-15077                  Opinion of the Court                             25

        clarifying how inferior courts have misunderstood the will of
        Congress)).
               Or interpreting 8 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1) as giving the Attorney
        General ﬁnal authority on the law may be a misinterpretation of
        the statute. A better interpretation may be that § 1103(a)(1) actu-
        ally spells out the Attorney General’s absolute authority on de-
        termining questions of immigration law only in relation to other
        immigration authorities who are listed in that provision. See 8
        U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1); see also Ruiz v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 73 F.4th 852, 862
        (11th Cir. 2023) (Newsom, J., concurring) (“Section 1103(a)(1)’s
        proviso is best understood, I submit, to empower the Attorney
        General to make legal determinations that are ‘controlling’ vis-à-
        vis other Executive-Branch actors—but not vis-à-vis the courts.”).
        Regardless, for this panel decision’s purpose, we have binding
        precedent on point, and that binding precedent is Yu.
               As Judge Jordan’s concurring opinion recognizes, we’re
        bound to apply the Yu retroactivity rule here. 3 See Concurring
        Op. at 1. The Matter of Thomas decision is based on interpreting
        the statutory text to enforce its original meaning. Under Yu the
        BIA’s earlier interpretation of the statute does not mean Matter of

        3       Like our concurring colleague, we are “not so sure” about what the
        statute means, see Concurring Op. at 13 n.4, but we would not go so far as to
        say that a statute whose plain text states that a “determination and ruling by
        the Attorney General with respect to all questions of law shall be control-
        ling,” 8 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1), says nothing about whether his interpretation
        should be given retroactive effect, Concurring Op. at 13 n.4.
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        26                      Opinion of the Court                  19-15077

        Thomas announced new law. Instead, it means that Matter of
        Thomas correctly states what the law always was and how it al-
        ways should have been applied. See Yu, 568 F.3d at 1333. We
        cannot hold that that it was impermissible for the BIA to apply the
        Attorney General’s Matter of Thomas decision.
                             B. Statutory Interpretation
                As we have mentioned, we review de novo questions of
        statutory interpretation, subject to the principles of Chevron def-
        erence that are “of special importance” in the immigration con-
        text. Negusie, 555 U.S. at 517; see also Arevalo, 872 F.3d at 1187;
        Amezcua-Preciado, 943 F.3d at 1341; Yu, 568 F.3d at 1331. The Chev-
        ron step one question “is whether the usual rules of statutory in-
        terpretation provide a clear answer” to the speciﬁc issue present-
        ed. Barton v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 904 F.3d 1294, 1298 (11th Cir. 2018).
        If the statutory text is unambiguous and “answers the question
        presented . . . we apply the statute and determine whether the
        [BIA’s] decision complies with the statutory text.” Hincapie-Zapata
        v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 977 F.3d 1197, 1200 (11th Cir. 2020). If the INA
        “is silent or ambiguous, we proceed to the second step [of Chev-
        ron], which requires us to determine whether the agency’s inter-
        pretation is a “permissible construction of the statute.’” Yu, 568
        F.3d at 1331. “So long as an agency’s interpretation is reasonable,
        it is controlling,” and it is reasonable if it is “not arbitrary, capri-
        cious, or manifestly contrary to the statute.” Id. at 1332 (quota-
        tion marks omitted).
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        19-15077               Opinion of the Court                       27

               Before turning to the statutory text here, we deﬁne the
        speciﬁc and precise issue before us, as step one of Chevron re-
        quires. See, e.g., Chevron, 467 U.S. at 843 (asking whether the stat-
        ute is ambiguous “with respect to the speciﬁc issue”) (emphasis
        added); id. at 862 (concluding “that the legislative history as a
        whole is silent on the precise issue before us”) (emphasis added); In
        re Gateway, 983 F.3d at 1256 (noting that at step one of Chevron
        “[w]e must ascertain whether Congress had a speciﬁc intent on
        the precise question before us”) (emphasis added; quotation marks
        omitted); Hincapie-Zapata, 977 F.3d at 1200 (stating that deference
        may be due if “the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to
        the speciﬁc issue”) (emphasis added; quotation marks omitted);
        Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Fla. v. United States, 566 F.3d 1257,
        1273 (11th Cir. 2009) (“The ﬁrst question is whether Congress has
        directly spoken to the precise question at issue.”) (emphasis added;
        quotation marks omitted).
               In this case, the facts of the state court sentence modiﬁca-
        tion order deﬁne the precise issue presented and the outer reaches
        of our holding. Cf. Alim v. Gonzales, 446 F.3d 1239, 1248 (11th Cir.
        2006) (holding that a prior decision that had addressed a convic-
        tion vacated for a “rehabilitative” reason was not binding in a fac-
        tual scenario where a conviction had been vacated because of a
        defect such as a violation of a constitutional right).
              The key facts are clear: Edwards’ state court sentence was
        modiﬁed so that he could avoid the immigration consequences of
        being an aggravated felon under federal law, and in that way avoid
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        28                     Opinion of the Court                19-15077

        removal. We know that’s why his sentence was modiﬁed because
        the state court gave no reasons for modifying Edwards’ sentence
        other than stating that it had considered his motion. Edwards’
        motion, in turn, was entirely about his immigration situation and
        the harsh eﬀect that removal would have on him and his family.
        See supra at 5, 8. Neither of his two motions to modify men-
        tioned any other reason for modifying his sentence.
               In the closely analogous immigration context of state court
        orders that vacate a conviction (instead of revising a sentence), we
        have held that we can look to a petitioner’s state court ﬁling to de-
        termine “the reason underlying the state court’s decision to va-
        cate [his] plea.” Alim, 446 F.3d at 1251. We concluded in Alim that
        “we have no reason to doubt that [the] plea was vacated for the
        reason provided in” the petitioner’s request for relief, and that was
        “particularly so because the state did not challenge or contest [the
        petitioner’s] factual allegations.” Id. The same is true here. The
        state court granted Edwards’ unopposed motion for a sentence
        modiﬁcation solely for the reason stated in that motion. One rea-
        son and one reason alone: to enable Edwards to avoid removal
        under federal immigration law. The question is whether the INA
        prohibits giving legal eﬀect for immigration purposes to this kind
        of state court sentence modiﬁcation order.
               We begin our analysis of the meaning of the statute, as we
        always should, with the text of it. The relevant text comes from 8
        U.S.C. § 1101(a)(48), which is located in the deﬁnitions section of
        the statute. It states in full:
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        19-15077              Opinion of the Court                        29

              (A) The term “conviction” means, with respect to
              an alien, a formal judgment of guilt of
              the alien entered by a court or, if adjudication of
              guilt has been withheld, where—
              (i) a judge or jury has found the alien guilty or
              the alien has entered a plea of guilty or nolo conten-
              dere or has admitted suﬃcient facts to warrant a
              ﬁnding of guilt, and
              (ii) the judge has ordered some form of punishment,
              penalty, or restraint on the alien’s liberty to be im-
              posed.
              (B) Any reference to a term of imprisonment or a
              sentence with respect to an oﬀense is deemed to in-
              clude the period of incarceration or conﬁnement or-
              dered by a court of law regardless of any suspension of
              the imposition or execution of that imprisonment or sen-
              tence in whole or in part.
        8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(48) (emphasis added).
               Our primary focus is on the meaning of a “term of impris-
        onment or a sentence.” Id. § 1101(a)(48)(B). The statute partially
        deﬁnes a “term of imprisonment or a sentence” by specifying one
        thing it is “deemed to include,” which is: “the period of incarcera-
        tion or conﬁnement ordered by a court of law regardless of any
        suspension of the imposition or execution of that imprisonment
        or sentence in whole or in part.” Id. We have held that “suspen-
        sion” takes its federal meaning, which is “a procedural act that
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        30                    Opinion of the Court                 19-15077

        precedes a court’s authorization for a defendant to spend part or
        all of the imposed prison sentence outside of prison.” Ayala-
        Gomez, 255 F.3d at 1319. Based on that deﬁnition of “suspension,”
        we have interpreted a “term of imprisonment” to “include all
        parts of a sentence of imprisonment from which the sentencing
        court excuses the defendant, even if the court itself follows state-
        law usage and describes the excuse with a word other than ‘sus-
        pend.’” Id.
               The partial statutory deﬁnition of a “term of imprison-
        ment” and our interpretation of it in Ayala-Gomez do not entirely
        resolve the precise issue before us. Because we have held that a
        “suspension” is “a procedural act that precedes” a court allowing a
        defendant to avoid spending time in prison, id. (emphasis added),
        that part of the partial statutory deﬁnition does not tell us about
        post-sentencing modiﬁcations to an already served sentence.
               And though the statute refers plainly to “the period of in-
        carceration or conﬁnement ordered by a court of law,” that does
        not tell us much about the precise issue before us either. 8 U.S.C.
        § 1101(48)(B). It doesn’t because both the original sentence and
        the modiﬁed sentence include a “period of incarceration or con-
        ﬁnement ordered by a court of law.” Id. The question is which
        period of conﬁnement counts for purposes of immigration law,
        the original one or the modiﬁed one.
              The statute does not unambiguously answer that question.
        But the Attorney General has. See 8 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1); see also
        Yu, 568 F.3d at 1333. And his interpretation on the precise ques-
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        19-15077                Opinion of the Court                          31

        tion of law at issue here is “reasonable and entitled to deference.”
        Yu, 568 F.3d at 1333; see also Bastias v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 42 F.4th 1266,
        1274 (11th Cir. 2022) (explaining that at Chevron step two the
        agency has a “range of discretion” to interpret the INA and is free
        to make a policy-based decision from a variety of possible inter-
        pretations).
               As we have discussed, see supra at 10–11, in Matter of Thom-
        as the Attorney General determined that a state court sentence
        modiﬁcation order issued for “avoidance of immigration conse-
        quences” has no legal eﬀect for immigration purposes. 27 I. & N.
        Dec. at 674. That determination with respect to this question of
        law is controlling. See 8 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1); Yu, 568 F.3d at 1333.
        Edwards’ sentence modiﬁcation order was issued after he com-
        pleted his sentence and after his removal proceedings began and
        only for the purpose of preventing removal. Because Edwards’
        modiﬁcation order did not change his “term of imprisonment”
        for purposes of federal immigration law, the BIA correctly deter-
        mined that he is an aggravated felon, and thus removable, and in-
        eligible for cancellation of removal, and ineligible for asylum.
                   IV. DENIAL OF WITHHOLDING OF REMOVAL
                                  ISSUE
                To qualify for withholding of removal, Edwards must show
        that if he returned to Jamaica his life or freedom would be threat-
        ened on account of his membership in a particular social group.
        Carrizo v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 652 F.3d 1326, 1331 (11th Cir. 2011). He
        bears the burden of showing that he more likely than not would
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        32                     Opinion of the Court                 19-15077

        be persecuted because of his membership in that social group. Id.
        The BIA determined Edwards had failed to carry his burden of
        showing that likelihood. That determination was a factual one.
        See Malu v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 764 F.3d 1282, 1290–91 (11th Cir. 2014)
        (explaining that the BIA made a ﬁnding “as a matter of fact” that
        the petitioner failed to prove that she more likely than not would
        be persecuted in the future on account of her membership in a
        particular social group). Edwards’ challenge to the factual deter-
        mination that he failed to prove the likelihood of future persecu-
        tion is his only basis for challenging the BIA’s determination that
        he is ineligible for withholding of removal.
               The front gate problem with Edwards’ factual challenge to
        the order denying him withholding of removal is that we do not
        have jurisdiction to review it. See id. at 1289 (explaining that “[w]e
        lack jurisdiction . . . to review factual ﬁndings that an alien is un-
        likely to endure persecution” and “to reweigh the evidence that
        the agency considered”). We have held that 8 U.S.C.
        § 1252(a)(2)(C) means that the “only relief available to [the peti-
        tioner], a criminal alien, is relief predicated on errors of law, not
        errors of fact.” Malu, 764 F.3d at 1290; accord Guerrero-Lasprilla v.
        Barr, 140 S. Ct. 1062, 1067, 1073 (2020) (holding that under 8
        U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D), jurisdiction exists to review “the applica-
        tion of a legal standard to undisputed or established facts,” but
        that provision “will still forbid appeals of factual determinations—
        an important category in the removal context”). We also held in
        Malu that based on the jurisdictional bar in § 1252(a)(2)(C), we
        “lack jurisdiction to review the Board’s factual ﬁnding” that a
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        19-15077               Opinion of the Court                        33

        criminal alien has “failed to prove that she more likely than not
        would be persecuted in the future on account of her membership
        in” a particular social group. Malu, 764 F.3d at 1291. That hold-
        ing, backed up by what the Supreme Court stated in Guerrero-
        Lasprilla, bars our review of Edwards’ factual challenges to the
        BIA’s ﬁnding that he failed to prove he would be harmed in Jamai-
        ca because of his membership in a particular social group. Be-
        cause Edwards asserts no challenges “predicated on errors of law,”
        id. at 1290, we have no jurisdiction to review that part of the BIA’s
        decision denying withholding of removal.
                The Supreme Court’s decision in Nasrallah v. Barr, 140 S.
        Ct. 1683 (2020), does not change our view about our lack of juris-
        diction. Nasrallah held that appellate courts do have jurisdiction
        to review under the substantial evidence standard the BIA’s factual
        determinations leading to an order denying CAT relief. Id. at
        1690. The Court acknowledged the government’s argument that
        its decision “might lead to judicial review of factual challenges to
        statutory withholding orders,” but it emphasized that the “ques-
        tion is not presented in this case, and we therefore leave its resolu-
        tion for another day.” Id. at 1694.
              At least until that “another day,” we are bound by our prior
        panel precedent to hold that we lack jurisdiction over factual chal-
        lenges to orders denying withholding; the Nasrallah decision has
        not overruled or undermined that precedent to the point of abro-
        gation. See United States v. Steele, 147 F.3d 1316, 1317–18 (11th Cir.
        1998) (en banc). For a Supreme Court decision to undermine
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        34                     Opinion of the Court                  19-15077

        panel precedent to the point of abrogation, the “decision must be
        clearly on point” and “clearly contrary” to the panel precedent.
        Garrett v. Univ. of Ala. at Birmingham Bd. of Trs., 344 F.3d 1288, 1292
        (11th Cir. 2003) (quotation marks omitted). “In addition to being
        squarely on point, the doctrine of adherence to prior precedent also
        mandates that the intervening Supreme Court case actually abro-
        gate or directly conﬂict with, as opposed to merely weaken, the holding
        of the prior panel.” United States v. Kaley, 579 F.3d 1246, 1255
        (11th Cir. 2009) (emphasis added).
                The Nasrallah decision about CAT relief orders leaves in
        force our prior panel precedent about withholding of removal or-
        ders. See Main Drug, Inc. v. Aetna U.S. Healthcare, Inc., 475 F.3d
        1228, 1230 (11th Cir. 2007) (“Obedience to a Supreme Court deci-
        sion is one thing, extrapolating from its implications a holding on
        an issue that was not before that Court in order to upend settled
        circuit law is another thing.”). The Nasrallah decision was based
        on statutory interpretation, and the statutory provisions inter-
        preted in that decision and this one are diﬀerent. See 8 U.S.C.
        § 1231(b)(3); The Foreign Aﬀairs Reform and Restructuring Act of
        1998 (FARRA), Pub. L. No. 105-277, § 1242, 112 Stat. 2681-822
        (1998); Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility
        Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), Pub. L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-627
        (1996). Which probably is why the Supreme Court was moved to
        point out in Nasrallah that it was not reaching any holding about
        orders denying withholding of removal.
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        19-15077               Opinion of the Court                        35

               Not only that but our post-Nasrallah precedent also indi-
        cates that our prior panel precedent about withholding orders
        continues to bind us. See Farah v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 12 F.4th 1312,
        1327 (11th Cir. 2021) (reciting in the same paragraph the rule
        from Nasrallah about CAT relief orders and the rule from our
        prior panel precedent about withholding orders); Thamotar v. U.S.
        Att’y Gen., 1 F.4th 958, 967 (11th Cir. 2021) (holding that an “order
        granting a noncitizen withholding of removal is a ﬁnal order of
        removal”).
                              V. CAT RELIEF ISSUE
               The BIA determined that the IJ “did not clearly err in ﬁnd-
        ing inadequate evidence to support a ﬁnding that it was more like-
        ly than not that [Edwards] would be tortured in Jamaica.” As
        we’ve already mentioned, we do have jurisdiction to review under
        the substantial evidence standard the BIA’s factual determinations
        about the denial of CAT relief. See Nasrallah, 140 S. Ct. at 1691.
        Under that standard we can reverse the BIA only if the record
        compels it. The record does not.
                The deﬁnition of “torture” for CAT purposes requires se-
        vere pain or suﬀering that was, among other things, “inﬂicted by
        or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a
        public oﬃcial acting in an oﬃcial capacity or other person acting
        in an oﬃcial capacity.” 8 C.F.R. § 208.18(a)(1); see also Todorovic v.
        U.S. Att’y Gen., 621 F.3d 1318, 1324 (11th Cir. 2010) (“[F]or CAT
        relief, an applicant must show that it is more likely than not that
        he will be tortured by, or with the acquiescence of, government
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        36                    Opinion of the Court               19-15077

        oﬃcials if returned to the designated country of removal.”); Jean-
        Pierre v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 500 F.3d 1315, 1323 (11th Cir. 2007).
               Edwards failed to show the likelihood of government in-
        volvement or acquiescence in any torture by the Jamaican gov-
        ernment. As the IJ found, the Jamaican government had made
        “eﬀorts to combat corruption in the police and security forces as
        well as abuses that may rise to the level of torture.” The police
        also took Edwards’ statement after he was robbed by gang mem-
        bers. Even if they failed to arrest the perpetrators, we have held
        that “CAT does not extend so far” as to allow “a person [to] ob-
        tain CAT relief merely because he was attacked by a gang of
        neighborhood thugs whom the police were unable to apprehend.”
        Reyes-Sanchez v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 369 F.3d 1239, 1243 (11th Cir.
        2004). The record does not compel the conclusion that Edwards
        has established entitlement to CAT relief.
                               VI. CONCLUSION
        For all of those reasons, Edwards’ petition is DISMISSED in part
        DENIED in part.
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        19-15077             [JORDAN, J., Concurring]                      1

        JORDAN, Circuit Judge, Concurring.
        I join the court’s opinion as to all but Part III.A. With respect to
        Part III.A, I concur in the judgment, as I agree that we should ap-
        ply Yu v. United States Attorney General, 568 F.3d 1328, 1330 (11th
        Cir. 2009), because it is directly on point. Nevertheless, the result
        we reach in Part III.A is, in my view, unsatisfactory. The Supreme
        Court has told us that the retroactivity of administrative decisions
        is subject to a multi-factor balancing test, and we have acknowl-
        edged that command. See S.E.C. v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194, 203
        (1947); McDonald v. Watt, 653 F.2d 1035 (5th Cir. Aug. 21, 1981). In
        Yu, we accorded automatic retroactivity to administrative rulings
        by the Attorney General in the immigration context, treating
        such edicts as if they were judicial decisions by Article III tribu-
        nals. And we did so without acknowledging, much less discussing,
        Chenery and McDonald. I write to explain why we should convene
        en banc to right our circuit law and conﬁrm that, in the world of
        administrative decisions, the Chenery balancing test governs all
        retroactivity determinations.
                                          I
        This case concerns the retroactive application of a 2019 ruling by
        the Attorney General—Matter of Thomas & Thompson, 27 I. & N.
        Dec. 674 (A.G. 2019)—regarding the federal immigration eﬀect of
        a state court order modifying, clarifying, or otherwise altering the
        sentence of a convicted noncitizen. In Thomas, the Attorney
        General ruled that, in determining whether an alien has commit-
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        2                        [JORDAN, J., Concurring]                   19-15077

        ted an aggravated felony for purposes of removal under the Im-
        migration and Naturalization Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(F), im-
        migration oﬃcials should credit state court orders reducing or
        modifying the “term of imprisonment” for a particular oﬀense
        only if the reduction was based on a “defect in the underlying
        criminal proceedings,” and not, for example, potential immigra-
        tion consequences. See id. at 674. This determination abrogated
        the Board of Immigration Appeals’ longstanding precedent hold-
        ing just the opposite—that that immigration oﬃcials are required
        to give full faith and credit to all state court orders modifying sen-
        tences, irrespective of their underlying reasons. See, e.g., In re Cota-
        Vargas, 23 I. & N. Dec. 849 (B.I.A. 2005).
        Thomas had signiﬁcant potential consequences for Mr. Edwards
        and his then-pending removal proceedings. Naturally, he argues
        here that the Attorney General’s about-face in Thomas cannot be
        retroactively applied to him. See Petitioner’s Br. at 11–15. He as-
        serts, for example, that “[a]s a new rule which can bring adverse
        consequences for immigrants’ past legal decisions, the new rule
        must not apply to modiﬁcations of sentence or to positive immi-
        gration rulings based on such modiﬁcations that occurred before
        October 25, 2019, the date of publication of the Attorney Gen-
        eral’s edict.” Id. at 14. 1

        1 Despite making this argument, Mr. Edwards did not cite to Chenery or

        McDonald in his initial brief. Those citations would have been helpful.
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        19-15077              [JORDAN, J., Concurring]                      3

        In our initial panel opinion, we held that Thomas was fully retro-
        active by applying Yu, a case in which we had accorded automatic
        retroactive eﬀect to an administrative ruling by the Attorney
        General. And in today’s opinion, we explain that, notwithstanding
        our recognition and application of Chenery in McDonald more than
        40 years ago, Yu is the controlling precedent because McDonald
        dealt with a Department of Interior rule and did not involve a de-
        cision by the Attorney General.
        The result we reach today, and the route we follow to get there, is
        an acceptable way to harmonize Yu and McDonald. But as both a
        doctrinal and practical matter, our resolution is problematic.
                                          A
        On the doctrinal side, Yu incorrectly relied on precedent related to
        the retroactivity standard of judicial rather than agency decision-
        making. See Yu, 568 F.3d at 1333. Judicial decisions generally apply
        retroactively as a rule, while legislative (and, as we will see, ad-
        ministrative) enactments and determinations are presumptively
        prospective. Compare, e.g., Solem v. Stumes, 465 U.S. 638, 642 (1984),
        with, e.g., Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hosp., 488 U.S. 204, 208–09
        (1988). The diﬀerence makes sense.
        Courts are charged with “say[ing] what the law is.” Marbury v.
        Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 177 (1803). And “a legal system based on
        precedent has a built-in presumption of retroactivity.” Solem, 465
        U.S. at 642. See also Kuhn v. Fairmont Coal Co., 215 U.S. 349, 372
        (1910) (Holmes, J., dissenting) (noting that judicial decisions “have
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        4                     [JORDAN, J., Concurring]               19-15077

        had retrospective operation for near a thousand years”). The Su-
        preme Court has suggested that the presumption of retroactivity
        attaching to judicial decisions inheres in the Constitution’s separa-
        tion of powers. See Harper v. Va. Dep’t of Taxation, 509 U.S. 86, 97
        (1993). So have others. See Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, 834 F.3d
        1142, 1150 (10th Cir. 2016) (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (“Precisely to
        avoid the possibility of allowing politicized decisionmakers to de-
        cide cases and controversies about the meaning of existing laws,
        the framers sought to ensure that judicial judgments ‘may not
        lawfully be revised, overturned or refused faith and credit by’ the
        elected branches of government.”) (quoting Chi. & S. Air Lines v.
        Waterman S.S. Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 113 (1948)).
        Unlike the executive branch, the federal judiciary comes with
        some built-in safeguards to protect against abrupt changes in the
        law, such as the concept of stare decisis, the law of the case doc-
        trine, preclusion rules, and—on a broader scale—the lifetime ap-
        pointment for federal judges, which renders them less inclined to
        bend to the popular politics of the day. There is also the Supreme
        Court, which sits at the apex of the federal judiciary and is availa-
        ble to resolve legal conﬂicts that arise in the lower federal courts.
        As the Tenth Circuit has noted, the Constitution “invests judges
        with none of the same ‘legislative Power[ ]’ to devise new rules of
        general applicability,” and assigns the limited “’judicial Power’ . . .
        not to avowed policymakers and politicians answerable to the
        people but to judges insulated from partisan inﬂuence and retri-
        bution and appointed without term.” De Niz Robles v. Lynch, 803
        F.3d 1165, 1171 (10th Cir. 2015).
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        19-15077              [JORDAN, J., Concurring]                        5

        On the other hand, administrative agencies sometimes operate in
        a quasi-legislative way. Much to the chagrin of some members of
        the judiciary and certain legal scholars, they sometimes “take ‘leg-
        islative’ and ‘judicial’ forms” despite being “exercises of [ ] the ‘ex-
        ecutive Power.’” Arlington v. FCC, 569 U.S. 290, 305 n.4 (2013)
        (quoting U.S. Const. Art. II, § 1, cl. 1).
        In the modern era of the administrative state, Attorneys General
        and executive agencies are in part tasked with exercising their del-
        egated legislative authority through quasi-judicial proceedings
        and the use of administrative law judges. See Laborers’ Int’l Union
        of N. Am., AFL-CIO v. Foster Wheeler Energy Corp., 26 F.3d 375, 387
        n.8 (3d Cir. 1994) (“A . . . fundamental diﬀerence between agencies
        and Article III courts is that an agency boasts both judicial and
        legislative powers. When an agency exercises its legislative pow-
        ers, neither the ‘cases’ or ‘controversies’ prerequisite, nor the rule
        of stare decisis, rears its head. And, as Chenery illustrates, agencies
        are free to exercise their legislative powers in adjudications.”).
        Because legislation “is rarely aﬀorded retroactive eﬀect,” De Niz
        Robles, 803 F.3d at 1169, when an administrative agency or oﬃcial
        exercises delegated legislative authority a presumption against ret-
        roactivity may also seem to inhere from the Constitution’s sepa-
        ration of powers doctrine. See Reynolds v. McArthur, 27 U.S. (2 Pet.)
        417, 434 (1829) (Marshall, C.J.) (“It is a principle which has always
        been held sacred in the United States, that laws by which human
        action is to be regulated, look forwards, not backwards; and are
        never to be construed retrospectively unless the language of the
        act shall render such construction indispensable.”); Stern v. Mar-
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        6                       [JORDAN, J., Concurring]                  19-15077

        shall, 564 U.S. 462, 484 (2011) (“Article III could neither serve its
        purpose . . . nor preserve the integrity of judicial decisionmaking
        if the other branches of the Federal Government could confer the
        Government’s ‘judicial Power’ on entities outside Article III.”).
        To the extent that it denies automatic retroactivity to administra-
        tion decisions, Chenery makes sense. “[T]he more an agency acts
        like a legislator—announcing new rules of general applicability—
        the closer it comes to the norm of legislations and the stronger
        the case becomes for limiting application of the agency’s decision
        to future conduct.” De Niz Robles, 803 F.3d at 1172. 2
                                             B
        Then there are the practical problems. With each change of ad-
        ministrations, there come new policies. In the immigration con-
        text such policies—sometimes expressed through the Attorney
        General’s rulings—are often 180 degree turns from settled norms
        that have widespread eﬀects on then-pending immigration pro-
        ceedings. This disruptive force is well-documented. See, e.g., Bijal
        Shah, The Att’y Gen.’s Disruptive Immigration Power, 102 Iowa L.

        2 Ironically, the Attorney General in Thomas—the decision at issue here—

        cited to Chenery, albeit for the proposition that an agency may decide wheth-
        er to announce new interpretations of a statute through rulemaking or
        through adjudication. See Thomas, 27 I & N Dec. at 688. It should reasonably
        be presumed, therefore, that if (in the Attorney General’s eyes) Chenery con-
        trols as to the propriety of an interpretive change by adjudication, Chenery
        would also govern with respect to the retroactivity of an interpretive change
        by adjudication.
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        19-15077             [JORDAN, J., Concurring]                     7

        Rev. 129, 143–44 (2017) (discussing how “many recent Attorney
        General decisions can be understood to have . . . suspended the
        long-term application of statute [ ] or altered the agent’s own
        longstanding practices, including by virtue of partisan employ-
        ment of the tool [of the referral and review mechanism]”); Joseph
        Landau, DOMA and Presidential Discretion: Interpreting and Enforcing
        Federal Law, 81 Fordham L. Rev. 619, 640 n.89 (2012) (referring to
        the Attorney General’s review and certiﬁcation powers as “power-
        ful tool[s] in that [they] allow[ ] the Attorney General to pro-
        nounce new standards for the agency and overturn longstanding
        BIA precedent”); Richard Frankel, Deporting Chevron: Why the At-
        torney General’s Immigration Decisions Should Not Receive Chevron
        Deference, 54 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 547, 561 (2020) (“Through the cer-
        tiﬁcation power, [the Attorney General] can make law, render pol-
        icy judgments, and implement the administration’s immigration
        policy agenda. Because of the lack of constraints on the Attorney
        General and the binding eﬀect of his rulings, certiﬁcation consti-
        tutes a ‘sweeping’ and ‘potent’ tool for refashioning the landscape
        of immigration law, with dramatic eﬀects on the millions of non-
        citizens subject to removal proceedings.”).
        What this has meant in practice over the last two decades is that
        existing immigration precedent is subject to change every four or
        so years. Indeed, between the last two administrations alone,
        there have been at least ﬁve vacaturs of prior precedential deci-
        sions by the BIA or the Attorney General—many of those deci-
        sions themselves vacaturs of even earlier precedential decisions.
        See, e.g., Thomas, 27 I & N Dec. at 674, 684–85 (overturning
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        8                    [JORDAN, J., Concurring]             19-15077

        longstanding BIA precedent regarding the applicability of state
        court orders altering or amending a sentence to immigration pro-
        ceedings); Matter of M-S-, 27 I & N Dec. 509 (A.G. 2019) (overrul-
        ing Matter of X-K-, 23 I & N Dec. 731 (BIA 2005), which allowed
        asylum-seekers with a positive credible fear determination for per-
        secution or torture to be eligible for a custody redetermination
        hearing before an immigration judge); Matter of A-B-, 28 I & N
        Dec. 307 (A.G. 2021) (vacating Matter of A-B-, 28 I & N 199 (A.G.
        2021) (restricting asylum claims based on domestic or gang vio-
        lence), and Matter of A-B-, 27 I & N Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018) (itself
        overruling Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26 I & N Dec. 338 (BIA 2014) (rec-
        ognizing domestic violence as a basis for asylum)); Matter of A-C-
        A-A-, 28 I & N Dec. 351 (A.G. 2021) (vacating Matter of A-C-A-A-,
        28 I & N Dec. 84 (A.G. 2020), and directing immigration judges to
        return to the “longstanding review processes” that the previous
        Attorney General prohibited); Matter of L-E-A-, 28 I & N Dec. 304
        (A.G. 2021) (vacating Matter of L-E-A-, 27 I & N Dec. 581 (A.G.
        2019) (reversing BIA ﬁndings and abrogating previous training
        guidance to immigration oﬃcers that a family may constitute a
        particular social group consistent with existing case law), and in-
        structing immigration judges to revert to the “preexisting state of
        aﬀairs”)); Matter of Cruz-Valdez, 28 I & N Dec. 326 (A.G. 2021) (va-
        cating Matter of Castro-Tum, 27 I & N Dec. 271 (A.G. 2018)). Even
        when not expressly vacated or overruled, prior precedent is often
        stayed or held in abeyance, leaving the rights of many hanging in
        the balance. See, e.g., Matter of Negusie, 28 I & N Dec. 120 (A.G.
        2020) (stayed by Matter of Negusie, 28 I & N Dec. 399 (A.G. 2021)).
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        19-15077             [JORDAN, J., Concurring]                      9

        One need not be a legal savant to recognize that this state of
        aﬀairs is tantamount to chaos.
        This legal ping-pong has become relatively commonplace, as
        more recent Attorneys General have used their certiﬁcation au-
        thority at a higher rate. See Am. Bar Ass’n, Resolution 121A & Re-
        port 2–3, n. 9–14 (Aug. 13, 2019) (chronicling the use of the At-
        torney General’s certiﬁcation power throughout the Barack
        Obama and Donald Trump administrations). See also Alberto R.
        Gonzalez & Patrick Glen, Advancing Executive Branch Immigration
        Policy Through the Attorney General’s Review Authority, 101 Iowa L.
        Rev. 841, 857–58 (2016) (describing the historical use of the certiﬁ-
        cation authority, including during the George W. Bush administra-
        tion). As the American Bar Association noted, “the certiﬁcation
        process has been used, as opposed to rulemaking (or legislative
        recommendations), to establish not only procedural and docket
        management policies, but also substantive questions of law gov-
        erning immigration proceedings that have resulted in reversing
        longstanding precedential decisions . . . .” Am. Bar. Ass’n, Resolu-
        tion 121A at 2. See also Jennifer S. Breen, Labor, Law Enforcement,
        and “Normal Times”: The Origins of Immigration’s Home within the
        Department of Justice and the Evolution of Attorney General Control
        over Immigration Adjudications, 42 Hawai’i L. Rev. 1, 58 (2019) (out-
        lining the increasing use of the self-referral mechanism and noting
        that “[n]ow, self-referral is the only way in which the Attorney
        General asserts his review power and that power is increasingly
        used to reshape immigration procedure and settled areas of im-
        migration law”). And with the (seemingly) never-ending political
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        10                    [JORDAN, J., Concurring]              19-15077

        polarization of the immigration debate, this trend will likely con-
        tinue.
        I don’t voice any opinion on whether these vacillating policy deci-
        sions are substantively good or bad (individually or collectively)
        for the body politic in general or the immigration system in par-
        ticular. My point is that, in light of these mercurial changes, the
        notion of automatic retroactivity (á la Yu) for Attorney General
        rulings (and similar administrative decisions of general applicabil-
        ity) seems ill-advised.
                                         III
        In Chenery, the Supreme Court instructed us to assess retroactivity
        in the administrative realm by “weighing” the costs the aﬀected
        individual or entity would face against the beneﬁts the agency
        would enjoy. See Chenery, 332 U.S. at 199–201. The Court noted
        that “retroactivity must be balanced against the mischief of pro-
        ducing a result which is contrary to a statutory design or to legal
        and equitable principles.” Id. at 203. This balancing is performed
        to “assess[ ] the underlying due process and equal protection im-
        plications associated with retroactive agency action.” Gutierrez-
        Brizuela, 834 F.3d at 1147.
        “When the Supreme Court speaks, we are bound to listen.” Jones
        v. Smith, 786 F.2d 1011, 1013 (11th Cir. 1986) ( Johnson, J., dissent-
        ing). There is no “immigration exception” to the balancing test
        laid out in Chenery for the retroactivity of administrative deci-
        sions. In giving automatic retroactivity to Attorney General rul-
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        19-15077              [JORDAN, J., Concurring]                      11

        ings in immigration matters, and in doing so without acknowl-
        edging or discussing Chenery, Yu erred.
               As the majority notes, many of our sister circuits have ac-
        corded automatic retroactivity to an Attorney General’s ruling in
        immigration cases like this one. See Maj. Op. at 22–23 (collecting
        cases). That, however, is not the whole story.
        First, some of those circuits have also—paradoxically—applied
        the Chenery balancing test in immigration cases. The Second Cir-
        cuit, for example, has cases applying Chenery and cases following
        the rationale of Yu in the immigration context. Compare, e.g.,
        Torres v. Holder, 764 F.3d 152, 158 (2d Cir. 2014) (following Yu), with
        Lugo v. Holder, 783 F.3d 119, 121–23 (2d Cir. 2015) (applying
        Chenery balancing test), and Obeya v. Sessions, 884 F.3d 442, 445–50
        (2d Cir. 2022) (same). So does the Seventh Circuit. Compare Shou
        Wei Jin v. Holder, 572 F.3d 392, 297 (7th Cir. 2009) (following Yu),
        with Negrete-Rodriguez v. Mukasey, 518 F.3d 497, 503–04 (7th Cir.
        2008) (applying Chenery balancing test).
        Second, just as some circuits have followed the misguided auto-
        matic retroactivity approach of Yu, others have instead applied the
        Chenery balancing test in immigration cases. These include the
        Third, Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits. See, e.g., De Niz Robles, 803
        F.3d at 1173–78; Monteon-Camargo v. Barr, 918 F.3d 423, 430–31 (5th
        Cir. 2019); Francisco-Lopez v. Att’y Gen. U.S., 970 F.3d 431, 436–40
        (3d Cir. 2020); Reyes v. Garland, 11 F.4th 985, 990–93 (9th Cir.
        2021). The Yu approach, therefore, is not universally embraced.
        On our end, we have discussed the Supreme Court’s Chenery anal-
        ysis in a well-known immigration case, though not with regards
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        12                       [JORDAN, J., Concurring]                     19-15077

        to retroactivity. See Gonzalez v. Reno, 212 F.3d 1338 (11th Cir. 2000)
        (citing to and analyzing Chenery when discussing the diﬀerent lev-
        els of deference aﬀorded to agency adjudications). We should en-
        deavor to correct course and apply Chenery correctly, especially
        given the sheer volume of immigration cases that come before
        us. 3
                                              IV
               Incumbent and newly-appointed Attorneys General—
        sometimes “avowedly politicized administrative [oﬃcials] seeking
        to pursue whatever policy whim may rule the day,” Gutierrez-
        Brizuela, 834 F.3d at 1150 (Gorsuch, J., concurring)—are permitted
        to overturn longstanding immigration rules from one day to the
        next. And to make matters worse for those litigating in the immi-
        gration system (and the lawyers who represent them), the federal
        circuits have applied contradictory analyses on the retroactive
        eﬀects of those ever-changing policy decisions.
        The notion of automatic retroactivity delineated in Yu relies on
        the mistaken premise that a ruling by the Attorney General is a
        “determination of what the law ‘had always meant.’” 568 F.3d at
        1333 (quoting Rivers v. Roadway Exp., Inc., 511 U.S. 298, 313 n.12
        (1994)). As explained earlier, the Attorney General should not be

        3 See, e.g., Admin. Office U.S. Courts, Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics 2022

        (Mar. 31, 2022), https://www.uscourts.gov/statistics-reports/federal-
        judicial-caseload-statistics-2022 (“BIA appeals accounted for 87 percent of
        administrative agency appeals and constituted the largest category of admin-
        istrative agency appeals filed in each circuit except the DC Circuit.”).
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        19-15077                [JORDAN, J., Concurring]                         13

        treated as an Article III federal court for retroactivity purposes. To
        put it in simple terms, how can the law have always meant one
        thing one day and then have always meant the exact opposite
        come the following election cycle? See, e.g., Landgraf v. USI Film
        Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 270 (1994) (noting that a retroactivity analysis
        focuses on “considerations of fair notice, reasonable reliance, and
        settled expectations”) (emphasis added). 4
        I believe we should convene en banc and hold that Chenery pro-
        vides the framework for determining the retroactive eﬀect of the
        Attorney General’s ruling in Thomas. Perhaps, in this mad, mad
        world, the Chenery balancing test will provide a dose of sanity and
        stability. 5

        4 The court posits that maybe Yu can be explained by 8 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1),

        the statute which gives the Attorney General the authority to make control-
        ling decisions regarding immigration law. See Maj. Op. at 23–25. I’m not so
        sure. This statute may explain why some deference is due to the Attorney
        General’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute, see Ruiz v. Att’y Gen., 73
        F.4th 852, 858 n.3 (11th Cir. 2023), but it says nothing about whether that
        interpretation should be given automatic retroactive effect by the federal
        courts.
        5 Tears for Fears, Mad World, on The Hurting (Mercury Records 1983).