A fantastic 4th Circuit decision finding that immigration judges must affirmatively develop the record, which includes suggesting particular social groups for those without lawyers.
Judge Wynn calls the government's objections "preposterous" and "utterly divorced from reality."
Judge Wynn telling truths! "We deem it unreasonable and fundamentally unfair to expect pro se asylum seekers...to even understand what a particular social group is, let alone fully appreciate which facts may be relevant to their claims and articulate a legally cognizable group."
This case concerns a person recruited into MS-13 at age 16, who fled El Salvador within months of joining because he realized the mistake he'd made.
His first attempt to leave ended in a beating and death threats—not idle ones, as they brutally murdered his cousin for leaving.
Despite being taken into ICE custody as a teenager, this man managed to file an asylum application on his own without a lawyer.
But because he had no lawyer, he couldn't articulate the exact legal ground for why he deserved asylum—and the judge never even bothered to help him.
The 4th Circuit also holds that a 2018 Board of Immigration Appeals decision that required all people seeking asylum on the basis of their membership in a particular social group to precisely delineate the definitions of that group simply does not apply to people without lawyers.
Judge Wynn and the 4th Circuit deserve enormous credit for making clear that it is fundamentally illegally and unfair for the government to railroad an unrepresented asylum seeker through a process that even the best lawyer gets confused by.
Read it here: cases.justia.com/federal/appell…
The government argued that requiring judges to assist unrepresented asylum seekers would be inefficient.
Judge Wynn wasn't having it: "We cannot withhold a crucial procedural protection mandated by law because enforcing it would be less convenient or less efficient."
Judge Wynn's conclusion!
"[F]ew populations are as vulnerable as noncitizens facing removal proceedings [without a lawyer]. Yet the consequences they may face are severe: family separation, prolonged detention, and deportation to a country where persecution or even death awaits"
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