Court Opinion

ID: 9499749
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:56:50.566868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:42.408406
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment of the court. I also join the court’s opinion except with respect to its advice to the agency that it restructure its decision-making process to create rigid categories for refugees that share certain ethnic or regional characteristics. Equal treatment of similarly situated persons is, of course, a goal of any civilized justice system and, as the remainder of the court’s fíne opinion quite cogently demonstrates, that goal definitely has not been achieved in this case. When it comes to restructuring the agency process by which that goal is sought, however, the decision should be made, in the first instance, by the agency itself within whatever confínes Congress desires to establish for the exercise of agency discretion. While individual members of the judiciary may have views on how the agency can best perform, I believe that, as an institution, we ought to refrain from such pronouncements. Refugee policy is a most difficult and sensitive issue, and individuals, of great intelligence and vision have wrestled with it for a very long time. Whether turning the immigration process into a duplicate of the present social security system is a silver bullet for resolving problems that, up to now, have evaded resolution is a question that we should leave to governmental entities that are far more institutionally qualified. We are a case-deciding institution and need to confine our institutional pronouncements to that function.