Urias-Orellana v. Bondi - Annotated Opinion

 Petitioners entered the United States without authorization in 2021. Soon after they arrived, the Government served petitioners with notices to appear in federal immigration court for a removal hearing. When they appeared as scheduled in an immigration court in Boston, petitioners conceded their removability but claimed asylum (along with other forms of relief from removal that are no longer at issue).

 Petitioner Urias-Orellana was the sole witness at the removal hearing. He testified that a “sicario” (i.e., hitman) from his hometown had been targeting him since 2016. That year, the sicario shot two of Urias-Orellana’s half-brothers and vowed to kill every member of his family. Id., at 332. To escape the sicario’s threats, Urias-Orellana, Gamez-Mejia, and G. E. U. G. relocated within El Salvador several times over the next few years. After each move, Urias-Orellana was threatened by men who demanded money and warned that they would leave him like his brothers if he did not pay up. One of the men even physically assaulted Urias-Orellana when he returned to his hometown for a brief visit. Id., at 333.

 The last straw came soon after Urias-Orellana’s fourth and final move in 2021, when he learned that men had been asking around town about the arrival of any newcomers. It was at this point that Urias-Orellana, Gamez-Mejia, and G. E. U. G. left El Salvador for the United States.

 Under the INA, the U. S. Government “may grant asylum” to a noncitizen if it “determines” that he “is a refugee.” 8 U. S. C. §1158(b)(1)(A). An asylum seeker qualifies as a “refugee,” and is thus eligible for asylum, if he “is unable or unwilling to return” to his country of nationality “because  of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” §1101(a)(42)(A). An asylum seeker can submit an affirmative application to the Department of Homeland Security, see §1158(a), or raise asylum eligibility as a defense to removal proceedings before an IJ, see §1229a(c)(4). Urias-Orellana and his family chose the latter path: When the Government initiated removal proceedings against them, they defended by asserting asylum eligibility.

 The IJ credited Urias-Orellana’s account of the facts but concluded that those facts were insufficient to establish either past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution. The IJ explained that, under First Circuit precedent, death threats may establish past persecution only when they are “ ‘so menacing as to cause significant actual suffering or harm.’ ” App. to Pet. for Cert. 31a (quoting Bonilla v. Mukasey, 539 F. 3d 72, 77 (CA1 2008)). The IJ concluded that Urias-Orellana’s past-persecution claim failed under that standard, as he had not submitted any medical, psychiatric, or psychological evaluations indicating that he had experienced such suffering or harm. App. to Pet. for Cert. 31a–32a. The IJ further found the evidence regarding Urias-Orellana’s alleged fear of future persecution to be lacking. He observed that Urias-Orellana had successfully escaped danger after many of his relocations and that any risk resurfaced only when Urias-Orellana returned to his hometown or nearby areas. Id., at 32a–35a.

 Given the dearth of evidence establishing past or future persecution, the IJ determined that Urias-Orellana did not qualify as a refugee eligible for asylum under §1101(a)(42). See id., at 44a. The IJ determined that Gamez-Mejia and G. E. U. G. were likewise ineligible for asylum, as their claims were “derivativ[e]” of Urias-Orellana’s. Id., at 28a. So, the IJ ordered all three petitioners’ removal. Id., at 44a.

 Petitioners appealed the IJ’s ruling to the BIA. See 8 CFR §1003.1(b) (2025) (providing authority for such an appeal). But the BIA affirmed the IJ’s conclusion that Urias-Orellana’s testimony “did not establish that he suffered past harm in the aggregate rising to the level of persecution.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 21a. It also agreed that because Urias-Orellana “only had problems when he returned to his hometown,” his testimony did not establish a well-founded fear of future persecution. Id., at 22a.

 Petitioners then sought further review in the U. S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit pursuant to 8 U. S. C. §1252(b)(2). See 121 F. 4th, at 331. Petitioners did not dispute that death threats may establish past persecution only when they are “so menacing as to cause significant actual suffering or harm.” Opening Brief for Petitioners in No. 24–1042 (CA1), pp. 9–10 (internal quotation marks omitted). Instead, they argued that the undisputed facts of this case met that standard. The Court of Appeals emphasized that its review was “cabin[ed]” to “whether the Agency conclusion [that petitioners] had not demonstrated past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution was supported by substantial evidence.” 121 F. 4th, at 335. Under that standard, reversal was warranted only “if, in reviewing the record as a whole, any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted).

 The Court of Appeals ultimately affirmed, concluding that Urias-Orellana’s testimony did not compel a finding of either past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution. See id., at 336–338. In particular, it determined that “[t]he Agency reasonably concluded that the threats experienced by Urias-Orellana” were not “so menacing as to cause significant actual suffering or harm.” Id., at 336 (internal quotation marks omitted). It similarly determined that, because “Urias-Orellana was able to live in towns  across El Salvador for years without harassment and only encountered difficulties once he returned to his hometown,” a reasonable factfinder would not be compelled to find a well-founded fear of future persecution. Id., at 338.

 We granted certiorari, 606 U. S. 903 (2025), to evaluate whether the Court of Appeals applied the appropriate standard of review when evaluating Urias-Orellana’s asylum claim.¹

 Like this case, Elias-Zacarias began with an IJ’s determination that a noncitizen was ineligible for asylum. Id., at 480. Elias-Zacarias had testified that he feared retaliation in his home country of Guatemala after he refused to join a group of guerillas who had attempted to recruit him. Id., at 479–480. But the IJ concluded that this testimony “failed to demonstrate persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” as the INA requires. Id., at 480 (citing 8 U. S. C. §§1101(a)(42), 1158(a)). After the BIA affirmed, Elias-Zacarias sought review in federal court. 502 U. S., at 480.

 The Court of Appeals sided with Elias-Zacarias, holding that “a guerilla organization’s attempt to conscript a person into its military forces necessarily constitutes ‘persecution on account of . . . political opinion,’ because ‘the person resisting forced recruitment is expressing a political opinion hostile to the persecutor.’ ” Id., at 481 (quoting Elias-Zacarias v. INS, 921 F. 2d 844, 850 (CA9 1990)). We reversed the Court of Appeals, however, reading the INA to require substantial-evidence review. See 502 U. S., at 481, 483–484.

 The version of the INA in place at the time of our decision did not contain what is now §1252(b)(4)(B). But it contained a similar provision, which specified that agency “findings of fact, if supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole, shall be conclusive.” 8 U. S. C. §1105a(a)(4) (1988 ed.). We interpreted that provision to require substantial-evidence review of the BIA’s determination that Elias-Zacarias was ineligible for asylum. More specifically, we explained that the provision set forth the substantial-evidence standard  for review, allowing reversal “only if the evidence presented . . . was such that a reasonable factfinder would have to conclude that the requisite fear of persecution existed.” 502 U. S., at 481. Though we did not explicitly use the term “substantial evidence,” our explanation accorded with how we have long understood that standard to apply in the administrative context. See Consolidated Edison, 305 U. S., at 229 (explaining that a statute providing that an agency’s “findings . . . as to the facts, if supported by evidence, shall be conclusive” means “substantial evidence” and requires only “such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

 We then went on to apply the substantial-evidence standard to the entirety of the agency’s persecution determination—including its conclusion that Elias-Zacarias’s testimony did not satisfy the legal standard for persecution. We explained that Elias-Zacarias had failed to establish a “well-founded fear” that the guerillas would “persecute him because of ” his political opinion “with the degree of clarity necessary to permit reversal of a BIA finding to the contrary.” 502 U. S., at 483 (internal quotation marks omitted). In other words, even accepting his allegations as true, they were not “so compelling that no reasonable factfinder could fail to find the requisite fear of persecution.” Id., at 484.

 Elias-Zacarias thus clarified that the INA’s provision for substantial-evidence review encompassed not only the agency’s factual findings but also the application of those findings to the statutory standard for persecution. Indeed, following our decision, the courts of appeals overwhelmingly understood it to require substantial-evidence review of the entirety of the persecution determination. See, e.g., Klawitter v. INS, 970 F. 2d 149, 152 (CA6 1992) (“According to the Supreme Court, the Board’s determination [a noncitizen] is not eligible for asylum must be upheld unless the  [noncitizen] shows that the evidence he or she presented was ‘so compelling that no reasonable factfinder could fail to find the requisite fear of persecution’ ” (quoting Elias-Zacarias, 502 U. S., at 483–484)).⁵

 Just a few years after we decided Elias-Zacarias, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), amending several provisions of the INA governing judicial review. §306(a)(2), 110 Stat. 3009–607. Among other things, IIRIRA added §1252(b)(4), clarifying the relevant standards of review for IJ and BIA removal orders. But §1252(b)(4) did not depart from our decision in Elias-Zacarias. To the contrary, §1252(b)(4) stayed the course.

 Indeed, subparagraph (B) largely tracks our opinion in Elias-Zacarias. Compare §1252(b)(4)(B) (providing that “administrative findings of fact are conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary”) with 502 U. S., at 483–484 (stating that, if an asylum applicant “seeks to obtain judicial reversal of the BIA’s determination, he must show that the evidence he presented was so compelling that no reasonable factfinder could fail to find the requisite fear of persecution”). Thus, §1252(b)(4)(B) effectively restates the pre-IIRIRA practice of applying the INA’s deferential standard for factual findings to the persecution determination. Cf. Bartenwerfer v. Buckley, 598 U. S. 69, 80 (2023) (“This Court generally assumes that, when Congress enacts statutes, it is aware of this Court’s relevant precedents” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

  Supporting this reading of §1252(b)(4)(B) are IIRIRA’s other amendments to the INA, which tend to restrict (rather than expand) review of immigration-related determinations in federal court. IIRIRA added, for instance, §1252(a)(2)(D), which strips courts of jurisdiction to review certain types of removal orders entirely, restoring jurisdiction only for “constitutional claims or questions of law.” IIRIRA similarly limited the scope of review under §1252(b)(4), even in the areas where courts retain their jurisdiction over removal orders. Not only does subparagraph (B) require deference toward “administrative findings of fact,” but subparagraphs (C) and (D) mandate that certain agency determinations are “conclusive unless manifestly contrary to the law.” Against this backdrop, it would make little sense to interpret subparagraph (B) as expanding judicial review beyond the pre-IIRIRA practice of applying deference to agency persecution determinations.

 Because the Court of Appeals applied the appropriate standard under §1252(b)(4)(B) when it reviewed the agency persecution determination for substantial evidence, the judgment below is affirmed.