Immigration: Standard of Review-Deferral of Removal-Lack of Finding

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Where a petitioner from Somalia claimed that the Board of Immigration Appeals improperly supplanted the immigration judge’s findings with its own after the immigration judge granted a waiver of inadmissibility and deferral of removal, there was no showing that the board crossed the line separating permissible weighing from impermissible fact finding, but the judge failed to make a finding that the petitioner was “more likely than not” to suffer torture in Somalia, so the matter is remanded.

Convention Against Torture

Dissenting opinion by Grasz, J.: “The court reverses and remands on Kassim’s request for deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture due to the lack of a finding by the IJ as to whether Kassim would ‘more likely than not’ suffer torture in Somalia. I join this part of the opinion in full. I would also reverse due to improper fact-finding by the BIA in its waiver of inadmissibility analysis.”

Petition granted in part; denied in part; remanded.

Kassim v. Barr (MLW No. 74811/Case No. 18-3618 – 7 pages) (U.S. Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit, Stras, J.) Petition for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Elizabeth G. Bentley, Minneapolis, argued for petitioner) (Claire Workman, Washington, D.C., for respondent).