Reyna Alfaro-Zelaya v. Pamela Bondi
Split Score
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Case Summary
Disposition
Vacated
The Fourth Circuit granted Reyna Elisa Alfaro-Zelaya’s petition for review, vacating the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision and remanding because the BIA failed to meaningfully consider extensive country-conditions evidence bearing on Alfaro-Zelaya’s asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT claims. The majority held that ignoring such evidence was an abuse of discretion, while a dissent argued this ruling deepens an existing circuit split over whether generalized country-conditions evidence can satisfy an applicant’s burden without individualized proof.
Circuit Split Identified
Legal Issue
Whether country-conditions evidence, standing alone or given significant weight, can satisfy a non-citizen’s burden of proof for asylum, withholding of removal, or CAT protection, or whether the applicant must always produce individualized evidence of persecution or torture.
Circuit Positions
Country-conditions evidence alone, or in combination with limited individualized facts, can satisfy the burden of proving likelihood of persecution or torture; failure to consider such evidence is reversible error.
Country-conditions evidence, without specific individualized proof, is insufficient; applicants must show a particularized, personal risk of persecution or torture beyond general country conditions.
Conflict Summary
Several circuits (1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th) have held that generalized country-conditions reports cannot, by themselves, establish the requisite individualized risk of persecution or torture, requiring applicants to present specific, personalized evidence. In contrast, the Fourth Circuit (in this case and earlier precedent) and the Ninth Circuit recognize that country-conditions evidence may, in appropriate circumstances, satisfy or decisively bolster the applicant’s burden, and that failure to engage with such evidence can constitute reversible error.