South Carolina Lawyers Weekly

Where the immigration judge or IJ, found that the threat of torture from MS-13, police and vigilante groups in El Salvador was less than 50%, both separately and in the aggregate, an applicant’s bid for protection under the Convention Against ...

Where the attorney general has discretion to waive removal for an alien who is the son of a U.S. citizen, the board erred by concluding that a deceased parent is not a qualifying relative for waiver eligibility. Nothing in the ...

Where a majority of the judges voted against rehearing en banc a case involving whether to grant Chevron deference to the Board of Immigration’s recent interpretation of § 1101(a)(43)(S), the motion for rehearing en banc was denied. Background A requested ...

Where the Honduran native’s first application for asylum was denied as untimely, but he then filed a second application after his brother’s murder, the Board of Immigration Appeals or BIA, erred by refusing to reopen the application. The murder constituted ...

Where the record showed that the asylum applicant was not targeted because of her membership in a particular social group but because the assailant attacked anyone who aided his former wife, the asylum claim was denied. Background Veronica Toledo-Vasquez petitions ...

Where a regulation requires the Department of Homeland Security or DHS, to notify an applicant of the need to provide biometrics, such as photographs and fingerprints; provide the applicant with a biometrics notice and provide instructions for producing biometrics, the ...

In an issue of first impression, where the government argued that the immigration judge’s decision should be upheld so long as it was based on a “facially legitimate and bona fide reason,” the court joined two circuits in rejecting this ...

Where a Honduran man argued that he should not be removed from the United States because his status as a “prosecution witness” would result in threats to his life or freedom in Honduras, the claim failed because that social group ...

Where a district court directed the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, to adjudicate the plaintiff’s naturalization application within 45 days and retained jurisdiction to hear the case if the agency failed to comply, the plaintiff did not qualify ...

Where the term “relating to obstruction of justice” is ambiguous about whether an ongoing or a reasonably foreseeable proceeding must be obstructed, the court deferred to the reasonable interpretation of the Board of Immigration Appeals, or BIA. Background Jean Francois ...