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BIA Goes Full "Czardashian": Social Distinction Revisited

Let me start out by saying that “Czardashian” is my invention; it has of course never been used by the U.S. government. However, it is an apt descriptor for this administration’s approach to asylum based on family membership, describing in one word both the absurdity of the legal theory and a summary of its requirements.

Initially presented as an Attorney General opinion during Trump’s first term, the Board of Immigration Appeals recently doubled-down on its “Czardashian” approach in a June 5 precedent decision, Matter of S-E-M-Z-.1 The theory applies to family-based particular social groups; as with all Trump era administrative decisions, it seeks to make asylum unobtainable. Hopefully, for the reasons described below, the approach will prove too flawed to withstand judicial review.

In the belief that knowledge is power, I offer a deep dive into the subject. After briefly explaining the particulars of the term, I review the history of the social distinction requirement and discuss how the standard had been consistently applied as to families from its inception until the Attorney General’s decision in Matter of L-E-A- II.2 I then point out the flaws in the A.G.’s decision, note how that decision was subsequently vacated and then reinstated, and finally discuss how the BIA’s recent decision employs flawed logic and outright misstatements in seeking to expand on an already erroneous concept.

The “Czar” Element Explained

I first used the term “Czardashian” in an August 2019 blog post explaining a decision of then Attorney General William Barr in a case called Matter of L-E-A- (commonly referred to as “L-E-A- II”). The Board of Immigration Appeals had previously decided the case in 2017 (a decision commonly referred to as “L-E-A- I”).3 The asylum applicant in that case claimed a fear of persecution on account of his family membership. The BIA accepted the parties’ stipulation that a family may constitute a particular social group (“PSG” for short), but then created an absurd standard for when family membership could be “at least one central reason” for a fear of persecution, requiring the persecutor to not just be targeting the individual because of their family membership, but to also possess a “personal animus” towards the family itself, a nearly impossible mindset to prove.4

Tellingly, the only example provided by the Board of a family that would satisfy its new standard was that of the Romanov family in 1918 Russia (hence the “Czar” reference).5

As no one I know can claim to be the equivalent of a member of the Romanov family in 1918 Russia, the Board intended to make it nearly impossible for anyone to obtain asylum based on their family membership.6 And as I’ve detailed in prior blog posts, the “Czar” approach to nexus has been widely rejected by the circuit courts.7

The “dashian” Element Explained

However, the barrier to relief created by the Board’s “Czar” approach was apparently not enough for the first Trump Administration; the Attorney General (who felt the need to revisit a claim in which asylum had already been denied by the BIA) referred the case to himself in order to additionally claim that the Board should never have agreed that a family can be a PSG. The A.G. thus vacated only that one part of the Board’s decision (which was incidentally the only part the Board got right), and offered a new and entirely original theory of why families generally should not qualify as PSGs.

What the A.G. did was to reinterpret “social distinction” to mean “extreme fame.” According to the A.G., families that are not sufficiently famous cannot establish the social distinction necessary to make their social group a valid one. So as I explained in 2019, in addition to having to be the equivalent of a Romanov to satisfy the nexus requirement, an applicant must also be the equivalent of a Kardashian to meet the social distinction requirement. Hence the term “Czardashian.”8

To better understand how wrong this interpretation is, let’s first take a look at the development of the social distinction requirement.

The Origin of Social Distinction: Social Visibility

As many readers know, for 21 years (beginning with the BIA’s 1985 decision in Matter of Acosta), the only legal requirement  for a particular social group was that it be defined by an immutable characteristic.9 Incidentally, in its 1985 decision setting forth the immutability requirement, the BIA held that the type of shared, immutable characteristic satisfying its standard “might be an innate one such as sex, color, or kinship ties…” (emphasis added).10  So from the first, the BIA viewed family as a valid PSG.

Starting in 2006, the BIA created two additional requirements for PSGs. In Matter of C-A-,11 the Board sought to legitimize its newly imposed requirement of “social visibility” by referencing UNHCR’s 2002 Guidelines on membership in a particular social group, implying that it was merely following UNHCR’s lead. In the BIA’s telling, the UNHCR guidelines “combine” elements of Acosta’s immutable characteristic approach, “as well as” a social perception approach.

If by “combined,” the Board meant that UNHCR surveyed two alternate means of establishing a valid PSG, and provided a legal standard under which either approach would suffice, then the Board’s description was accurate.12 By placing the word “or” between the immutability and social perception tests, the UNHCR created an expansive standard, providing two alternate ways in which a PSG may be found valid.

Yet somehow, the BIA reached the conclusion that a PSG requires both immutability and social visibility. The Board thus accomplished the opposite result of the UNHCR rule it supposedly relied on; by changing the word “or” to “and,” it limited eligibility by rejecting groups satisfying only one of the requirements.

But in spite of all this, the Board in C-A- began its discussion of the new social visibility requirement with the following: “Our decisions involving social groups have considered the recognizability, i.e., the social visibility, of the group in question. Social groups based on innate characteristics such as sex or family relationship are generally easily recognizable and understood by others to constitute social groups.”13

So in creating this new requirement, the BIA in C-A- held out “family relationship” as an example that would clearly satisfy the social visibility standard; note the Board’s description of family relationship as “easily recognizable,” and the Board’s equating of “recognizability” with “social visibility.”

Furthermore, in the above quote, the Board claimed in C-A- that its prior decisions had already considered social visibility, essentially saying that it is not really a new standard. Whether or not we agree with this assertion, let’s remember it, as it will have significance later on in our discussion.

The Rebranding of the Standard as Social Distinction

Because the word “visibility” apparently confused at least one government litigator, who argued before the Seventh Circuit that the term referred to ocular visibility (i.e. that a group’s members must be visibly recognizable),14 the BIA renamed the requirement “social distinction” in two precedents simultaneously issued in 2014.15

In the first of those, Matter of W-G-R-, the BIA mentioned a Second Circuit case, Gomez v. INS, in which that court (in the words of the Board) held that “members of a social group must share a ‘fundamental characteristic’ that is ‘recognizable and discrete’ such that it ‘distinguish[es] them in the eyes’ of others.”16

In mentioning that case, the BIA continued that it “later cited Gomez on this point in determining that, in Somali society, clan membership is a ‘highly recognizable’ characteristic that is ‘inextricably linked to family ties.’”17

So once again, in 2014, the BIA referenced family ties as a clear example of a group with social distinction, to the extent that other groups “inextricably linked to family ties” will also be found socially distinct. And in endorsing the “recognizable” test for social distinction in its 2014 decision, let’s again remember that the Board had described family relationships as “easily recognizable” several years earlier in C-A-.

To summarize, the BIA, which first held out “kinship” as a clear example of a particular social group in 1985, added a social visibility requirement in 2006. In doing so, the Board claimed that social visibility had always been part of the equation, and supported that assertion by citing family relationships as an example of a group that would clearly pass its new test.

Then in 2014, when it was forced to clarify that social visibility didn’t refer to ocular visibility, the Board rebranded the requirement as “social distinction,” and in doing so, once again referenced family ties as an example satisfying the standard because of its high recognizability.

It also bears noting that in W-G-R-, the Board did not purport to create a new standard. Rather, it explained what it had always meant by social visibility, but gave it a new, less confusing name.18

Every Circuit Court to Reach the Issue Has Found that Family Can Be a Valid PSG

In addition to the BIA’s consistent reference to family as a valid PSG in its precedent decisions from 1985 through 2017 (a 32 year period), every single circuit court of appeals to address the issue also reached this same conclusion. An August, 2019 practice advisory issued by the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (“CLINIC”)19 listed published (i.e. precedential) decisions of the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits recognizing the validity of family as a PSG, sometimes quite emphatically. For example, the First Circuit held that “There can, in fact, be no plainer example of a social group based on common, identifiable and immutable characteristics than that of the nuclear family.”20 And the Fourth and Ninth Circuits both recognized family as a “prototypical” PSG.21

The CLINIC practice advisory additionally pointed out that the three remaining circuits that had not yet ruled on the issue (i.e. the Fifth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits)  have all “favorably cited previous BIA precedent recognizing kinship ties and family as a cognizable PSG.”22

Thus, by 2019, few concepts were as strongly and consistently established by case law as the validity of family as a particular social group for asylum purposes.

L-E-A- II: Out of the Blue, the A.G. Invents a New Meaning of Social Distinction

Let’s now look at the A.G.’s decision in L-E-A- II with the above history in mind.

First, the A.G. justified his meddling by claiming that the Board did not perform the required inquiry as to whether the Respondent’s family (i.e. “the immediate family of the respondent’s father,” where the Respondent lived in the father’s home) satisfied the particularity and social distinction requirements for a PSG.23

The A.G. took issue with the following statement from the BIA: “[i]n consideration of the facts of this case and the agreement of the parties, we have no difficulty identifying the respondent, a son residing in his father’s home, as being a member of the particular social group comprised of his father’s immediate family.”24

Based on that quote from the BIA’s decision, the A.G. stated “The Board here did not perform the required fact-based inquiry to determine whether the respondent had satisfied his burden of establishing the existence of a particular social group within the legal requirements of the statute. The Board’s summary conclusions, based on DHS’s stipulation rather than its own legal analysis, must therefore be reversed.”25

Must therefore be reversed? Because the Board didn’t perform sufficient analysis? As we have seen, the BIA previously recognized over and over that family clearly satisfies the requirements for PSG, and in particular, that family membership satisfies the social distinction prong of the analysis. The Board in C-A- relied on the fact that family ties clearly satisfy social visibility as a means of justifying adding the new requirement. And as we saw above, in W-G-R-, the Board defended the social distinction addition by demonstrating that all of the PSGs it had previously recognized satisfied the new requirement as well, and noted that in its decision in Matter of H-, the Board had found clan membership “highly recognizable” noting its link to “family ties.”

Add to the above the broad recognition of family as a PSG by the circuit courts (which the BIA noted in its decision in L-E-A-), and the facts of the case, which involved a PSG of “immediate family” and where the Respondent still lived in his father’s home and was clearly identifiable as a member of the immediate family in question. What additional analysis did the A.G. think was required? Had the Board recognized that two plus two equals four, would the A.G. have vacated that part of the decision because it hadn’t shown the actual math involved?

After relying on this ridiculous reason for rejecting what had been repeatedly analyzed and firmly established, the A.G. veered entirely off course. Let’s remember that the Attorney General in whose name this decision was issued is no asylum law expert.

The A.G. non-expertly opined that because “almost every” noncitizen is a member of a family, then virtually every noncitizen would be a member of a PSG, and, according to the A.G., “[t]here is no evidence that Congress…intended to cast so wide a net.”26 But what about the grounds of race and nationality? Isn’t everyone a member of both of those groups? So why would Congress intend to cast “so wide a net” for those designated grounds (plus let’s not forget religion, which also covers a high percentage of the population), but not for the PSG category?

I’m not sure if Barr, being ignorant of how asylum law works, thought that being a member of one of the designated categories equaled being granted asylum. Even if we set aside the whole PSG category, I am a member of a race, a religion, a nationality, and I possess a political opinion. Yet I don’t qualify for asylum because I don’t have a well-founded fear of being persecuted on account of any of those grounds. So the “casting so wide a net” argument is nonsense.

Continuing down his wrong path of reasoning, Barr said that (1) the fact that family units carry societal importance within a society is not enough, because it would allow everyone to be a member of a cognizable group. (2) Therefore, an asylum applicant has to show that their particular family is set apart or distinct from society in some way.27

Well, every family is set apart and distinct from society in some way, so problem solved. Whether or not I’ve ever heard of Bobby Johnson’s family in Azusa, California, I know that I am not a part of it, but that Bobby’s spouse, parents, siblings, and children are. I know that if they hold a family reunion, it’s got nothing to do with me. I know that if a member of that family dies intestate, I will not be in the mix of those who might inherit, nor will I be in the mix for custody of any minor children of the deceased. I know that if I hear that members of that family are being targeted by a violent gang, I’m not at risk. And I’m pretty sure that WIlliam Barr knows all of this too.

Barr also felt the need to add that adjudicators should be skeptical of PSGs that were defined for litigation purposes.28  But of course, family was not something made up by immigration lawyers for asylum purposes.

As I wrote in 2019:

The true test for social distinction is whether the proposed group is consistent with how society divides itself.  And families are the most basic way that society divides itself into groups.  We are often identified in society as someone’s child, spouse, parent, or sibling.  When we meet someone with a familiar last name, the first thing we ask is “are you related to so and so?”  The reason we care to ask such question is precisely because families are socially distinct.  By comparison, no one has ever asked me if I’m a member of the group of “tall, gray-haired, left-handed immigration lawyers with glasses,” because that is the type of artificially concocted group that in no way reflects how society divides itself.29

Now let’s also remember that every single circuit court disagrees with Barr’s view. Barr’s answer was that everyone except for him is wrong. The circuit courts were either lazy: “In some of these cases, the courts may have been willing (as the Board was in this case) to accept, or assume with little analysis, the existence of a particular social group because the court went on to deny

asylum on other grounds.” In other circuits, Barr blames ignorance of the law, stating “in my view, they have relied upon outdated dicta from the Board’s early cases” that did not reflect the later requirements of particularity and social distinction.”30

As to the latter argument, here is where the BIA’s claim in Matter of C-A- that social visibility/social distinction is not something new, but was always part of the equation becomes important. How can Barr’s claim of reliance on early cases that did not reflect the requirement of social distinction be squared with the BIA’s claim that social visibility was always part of its analysis, and its subsequent position in W-G-R- that social distinction is no different from social visibility? Or the Board’s holding up family in both of those decisions as a group so recognizable that it would clearly satisfy the test?

I have recently noticed the use of a new term called “AI Slop,” which I believe refers to the extremely low quality of digital content. In that case, might Matter of L-E-A- II accurately be termed “AG Slop?”

Matter of L-E-A- II Was Vacated…

For all of the above reasons, on June 16, 2021, then Attorney General Garland vacated his predecessor’s opinion in Matter of L-E-A- II.31 In his decision, Garland directed Immigration Judges to “no longer follow L-E-A- II when adjudicating pending and future cases.”

…Only to Be Reinstated Four Years Later

On September 2, 2025, a little over four years after the decision was vacated, then Attorney General Bondi issued Matter of R-E-R-M- & J-D-R-M-, reinstating L-E-A- II, and directing Immigration Judges and the BIA to adhere to its holding in pending and future claims.32

The BIA Doubles-Down on Its Czardashian Approach

This brings us to June 5, 2026, when the BIA issued a precedent decision in Matter of S-E-M-Z-.33

Why Did the BIA Revisit the Issue?

As background, the BIA has recognized in 2014, in a case called Matter of M-E-V-G-, that for purposes of social distinction, determining society’s perception “may invite an inquiry into a more limited subset of the country’s society.”34  In other words, according to the Board, social distinction need not be nationwide, but may be limited to the view of society at the local level. In that case, the Board pointed to its decision in Matter of Kasinga,35 “where we considered a particular social group within a tribe,” as an example. The Board immediately compared this “localized social distinction” approach to another protected ground, religion, quoting from a Ninth Circuit decision, Henriquez-Rivas v. Holder that “[s]ociety in general may also not be aware of a particular religious sect in a remote region.”36 So in 2014, the BIA seemed to understand that a religion can form the basis for an asylum claim even where it does not enjoy national recognition.

The Board put this localized approach into practice a few years later during the first Trump term in Matter of E-R-A-L-, where it considered whether a PSG defined by land ownership was socially distinct “within the society in question —namely, El Progreso, Guatemala.”37 So in that case, the Board considered “society” to be very localized: a single department (out of 22 in Guatemala) with a population of just over 176,000 (out of Guatemala’s total population of over 18.6 million). The Board in E-R-A-L- specifically found that it was not established that “those living in El Progreso or the cartels themselves” perceived the proposed PSGs as being socially distinct.38

What Further Restriction Does the Board Now Create?

With this background, the BIA issued Matter of S-E-M-Z-, stating “we conclude that social distinction must generally be measured on a countrywide basis, rather than from the perspective of a neighborhood or other limited geographic location within a country.”39

What reason did the Board give for suddenly reneging on its earlier position? It’s worth noting that the three-judge panel in S-E-M-Z- included the author of the 2020 decision in Matter of E-R-A-L-. And interestingly, the Board in S-E-M-Z- acknowledged “that some of our language has referenced concepts smaller than national scope,” but then inaccurately claimed that none of its past case law “holds that a neighborhood or other limited geographic location within a country constitutes a society for purposes of social distinction.”40 Did the Board somehow simply forget about E-R-A-L-?

Anyway, the Board further claimed that focusing on the local “is inconsistent with the purpose of nationwide protection contemplated by asylum and statutory withholding of removal.”41 The Board provided absolutely no citation to any source to support this statement.

The Board tried to draw a comparison to claims based on other protected grounds. Per the Board, “claims that may arise from religion or political opinion, separate and distinct protected grounds, are not limited by a small geographic location of identity or mistreatment, but considered in the context of nationwide harm.”42 Again, the Board provided no authority to support its claim.

The Flaws in the Board’s Latest Decision

Is the Board correct? As to nationwide protection, “[i]t is an underlying assumption of refugee law that, whenever available, national protection takes precedence over surrogate international protection.”43 However, this principle has nothing to do with whether a group’s social distinction is recognized locally, nationwide, or within a particular segment of society. That may be the reason why the Board provided no citations in support of its statement.

Asylum Law Focuses on Persecution, and then the Reasonableness of Internal Relocation

Furthermore, the Board’s claim distorts how national protection is actually considered in asylum claims. The initial focus is whether the claimant has a well-founded fear of persecution on account of any of the protected grounds. Where the answer is yes, it is next determined whether the claimant can find safety by relocating within the country. But that analysis considers not only whether a safe part of the country exists, but also whether it would be reasonable to expect the asylum seeker to relocate there. On this point, federal regulations require the adjudicator to consider, among other things, "whether the applicant would face other serious harm in the place of suggested relocation; any ongoing civil strife within the country; administrative, economic, or judicial infrastructure; geographical limitations; and social and cultural constraints, such as age, gender, health, and social and familial ties."44

The Reasonableness of Relocation Factors Recognize Localized Threats

Note that the regulations recognize that the threat of harm need not extend nationwide. Otherwise, why would there be a need to consider geographic limitations, cultural restraints, infrastructure, etc.? As stated, those factors recognize that there may be safe areas within the country of asylum, but that a grant of asylum may nevertheless be warranted. So if our asylum laws didn’t recognize localized risk of persecution (as the BIA seems to claim), what would be the purpose of the above-cited regulation?

Localized Political and Religious-Based Threats Have Long Been Recognized

There is also no shortage of case law contradicting the BIA’s claim that cases involving religion or political opinion have not involved facts involving localized identity or mistreatment. The BIA itself in its precedent decision in Matter of S-A-, recognized an extremely localized version of religious persecution where the Respondent was targeted by her father for practicing a more liberal version of their shared religion.45 Plus, as noted above, the BIA itself quoted the Ninth Circuit in Henriquez-Rivas of a small religious sect that might enjoy only a local identity. Did the Board forget about this quote in its own decision?

Turning to the other ground cited by the Board, political opinion, the entire concept of imputed political opinion means that the persecutor is reading a political opinion into some aspect of the asylum seeker; such imputation has allowed for grants of asylum on account of a political opinion that the asylum seeker might not even actually possess.46 So how does that square with the Board’s statement that recognition and persecution are always nation-wide in such claims, where the political opinion in such cases might only exist in the imagination of the persecutor?

For example, in a Seventh Circuit case, Chen v. Holder,47 a political opinion was imputed to a woman in Langqi, China who had sued the local government over its broken promise to provide a plot of land and construction costs for a new home after razing her prior home as part of a military construction project. The political opinion was thus imputed to the Petitioner by the local government. The petitioner in that case lacked a national profile, and if she actually did possess a political opinion, it certainly wasn’t nationally recognized.

Also, the Second Circuit found in Delgado v. Mukasey that the fear of a person kidnapped by the FARC in Colombia because of their computer skills who subsequently refused to assist her captors “could well qualify as persecution for an imputed political opinion (opposition to the FARC).”48 As in Chen,the targeted individual enjoyed no national renown; whatever political opinion that was imputed to her refusal existed only in the minds of her FARC captors. So how would either of these cases satisfy the Board’s above-quoted statement in S-E-M-Z- that asylum claims based on a political opinion are “not limited by a small geographic location of identity or mistreatment, but considered in the context of nationwide harm?”

The BIA has never required a member of a particular religion or the holder of a political opinion to be nationally recognized. Even in the PSG context, recognized groups are not required to establish that its members enjoy fame nationwide. For example, one need not be a nationally famous woman, member of the LGBTQ community, landowner, former government official, or member of a clan or tribe in order to be granted asylum. So then why would national renown be required only in the case of family?

The Circuit Cases Cited by the Board in S-E-M-Z- Don’t Support the Board’s Position

In S-E-M-Z-, the BIA stated that “[c]ircuit court decisions routinely refer to a nation’s society.” I assume that “a nation’s society” here means society as defined by the entire country. The Board then listed nine circuit court decisions that included a sentence containing the name of the country plus the word “society.”49 So it is the Board’s view that because each cited decision contained a sentence with the words, e.g. “Mexican society” or “Salvadoran society,” they somehow support the Board’s newfound view. Of course, this is nonsense.

Most significantly, in none of the cited cases is there an indication that anyone proposed a subsection of society for social distinction purposes at the agency level. For example, the first case cited, Amezcua-Preciado v. U.S. Att’y Gen.,50 involved an asylum applicant who was granted asylum by an Immigration Judge while Matter of A-R-C-G- was binding precedent; the applicant in that case relied on a PSG that was nearly identical to that approved of by the BIA in A-R-C-G-, in which social distinction for the group in question was found to exist on the national level.51 There was thus no need to reference a subset of society in such cases. The grant was reversed by the Board only after the Attorney General issued Matter of A-B-, which vacated A-R-C-G-.52

One of the other cases cited by the Board, Conde Quevedo v. Barr, did refer to “Guatemalan society.”53 But if the Board had bothered to read the entire decision, it would have seen that on the same page, the court also said: “[f]or example, if there were evidence that, in a specific country, people in the community knew who reported crimes to the police, or if there were laws protecting those who did, the proposed group potentially could be cognizable. Id. (Emphasis added).54 “In the community” refers to a more local version of society, yet the Board fails to mention, much less address, that wording.

Yet another of the cited cases, Morales v. Garland,55 does refer to “the whole of Salvadoran society” (although again, that may be because no subset of society was proposed below). But interestingly, in addressing another group proposed by the petitioner, namely, her family, the court in Morales recognized that group to be cognizable under circuit precedent.56 So maybe that case doesn’t help the Board as much as it seems to think, since the whole premise of S-E-M-Z- is to undermine determinations that family is a valid PSG.

In contrast to the above, in an unpublished decision dated February 20, 2025 (i.e. under the present administration), the BIA itself remanded a case in light of a Ninth Circuit decision that, in the words of the Board, “concluded that a family group that was known within a single community in Mexico was cognizable for purposes of the INA.”57 Somehow, both the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Meza Diaz and the BIA’s own very recent unpublished decision interpreting and applying its holding escaped the Board’s notice entirely in its decision in S-E-M-Z-.

The BIA Failed to Distinguish Its Sudden Reversal From Its Prior Precedents

It is also worth noting the following language from a 2024 Sixth Circuit decision, Mazariegos-Rodas v. Garland:

True enough, this court has recognized that where the agency has previously reached the "opposite conclusion for a similarly situated applicant," the BIA errs if it "fail[s] to adequately distinguish" its denial of an applicant's claim for relief from removal. Kada v. Barr, 946 F.3d 960, 967 (6th Cir. 2020). The BIA should therefore refrain from cursorily disregarding a decision submitted by an applicant, even if that decision is not binding, simply because the PSG determination is conducted on a case-by-case basis.58

This raises the question: has the BIA in S-E-M-Z- adequately distinguished its stance here from its earlier decisions detailed above both in its reinterpretation of social distinction as fame, and in its sudden, out-of-the-blue determination that the PSG must be socially recognized nationally as opposed to locally? Note that in Mazariegos-Rodas, the inconsistency was with an Immigration Judge’s decision, which carries no precedential authority. But in S-E-M-Z-, the inconsistencies are with multiple precedent decisions of the BIA itself, as well as with at least one unpublished BIA decision.

Conclusion

It remains unclear to me how the present BIA can simply pronounce new law in the above-described manner. I hope that some of the points raised here will prove helpful to practitioners and adjudicators trying to reach a correct result in similar cases.

Copyright Jeffrey S. Chase 2026. All rights reserved.

Notes:

  1. Matter of S-E-M-Z-, 29 I&N Dec. 680 (BIA 2026).

  2. Matter of L-E-A-,  27 I&N Dec. 581 (A.G. 2019) (“L-E-A- II”).

  3. Matter of L-E-A-, 27 I&N Dec. 40 (BIA 2017) (“L-E-A- I”).

  4. And by requiring proof of mindset, the Board ignored the statute’s use of the term “reason” rather than “motive” for purposes of determining nexus.

  5. L-E-A- I, supra at 44.

  6. As a rule of thumb, when the government has to concoct such an obscure example as it did here, its interpretation of the statute is almost certainly not what Congress intended.

  7. See Jeffreyschase.com (blog), “Nexus Update: Matter of M-R-M-S- is Vacated,” (Sept. 25, 2025), Nexus Update: Matter of M-R-M-S- is Vacated — Jeffrey S. Chase | Opinions/Analysis on Immigration Law

  8. See Jeffreyschase.com (blog), “L-E-A-: How Much Did the AG Change?” (Aug. 11, 2019),  L-E-A-: How Much Did the AG Change? — Jeffrey S. Chase | Opinions/Analysis on Immigration Law.

  9. See Matter of Acosta, 19 I&N Dec. 211 (BIA 1985).

  10. Id. at 233.

  11. Matter of C-A-, 23 I&N Dec. 951 (BIA 2006).

  12. See UNHCR,  Guidelines on International Protection No. 2: “Membership of a Particular Social Group” Within the Context of Article 1A of the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (May 7, 2002) at ❡11, available at https://www.refworld.org/policy/legalguidance/unhcr/2002/en/31818.

  13. Matter of C-A-, supra at 959 (emphasis added).

  14. See Gatimi v. Holder, 578 F.3d 611 (7th Cir. 2009) (explaining the government’s position on social visibility as “[t]he only way, on the Board's view, that the Mungiki defectors can qualify as members of a particular social group is by pinning a target to their backs with the legend "I am a Mungiki defector." The government's brief states flatly that secrecy disqualifies a group from being deemed a particular social group.”).

  15. See Matter of W-G-R-, 26 I&N Dec. 208 (BIA 2014); and Matter of M-E-V-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 227 (BIA 2014).

  16. Matter of W-G-R-, supra at, 216 (quoting Gomez v. INS, 947 F.2d 660, 664 (2d Cir. 1991)).

  17. Id. (quoting Matter of H-, 21 I&N Dec. 337, 342 (BIA 1996)).

  18. See W-G-R-, supra at 216 (“We now rename that requirement “social distinction” to clarify that social visibility does not mean “ocular” visibility”), 217 (“In fact, for decades we have recognized particular social groups that are clearly not ocularly visible”), and 218 (“This articulation of the particularity and social distinction requirements is consistent with our prior decisions involving claims of persecution on account of membership in a particular social group.”).

  19. See CLINIC, Practice Pointer, Matter of L-E-A-, 27 I&N Dec. 581 (A.G. 2019), (Aug. 2, 2019), available at https://www.aila.org/library/clinic-practice-pointer-on-matter-of-l-e-a,  at 6. (Note: this is a truly excellent resource for practitioners.)

  20. Gebremichael v. INS, 10 F.3d 28, 36 (1st Cir. 1993).

  21. See Crespin-Valladares v. Holder, 632 F.3d 117, 125 (4th Cir. 2011); Sanchez-Trujillo v. INS, 801 F.2d 1571, 1576 (9th Cir. 1986) (finding immediate family to be a “prototypical” PSG). See also Rios v. Lynch, 807 F.3d 1123, 1128 (9th Cir. 2015) (finding family to be a “quintessential” PSG).

  22. CLINIC Practice Pointer at 6-7.

  23. L-E-A- II at 584.

  24. L-E-A- I at 43.

  25. L-E-A- II at 596.

  26. L-E-A- II at 593.

  27. L-E-A- II at 594.

  28. L-E-A- II at 595-96.

  29. See footnote 8.

  30. L-E-A- II at 590.

  31. Matter of L-E-A-, 28 I&N Dec. 304 (A.G. 2021) (“L-E-A- III”).

  32. Matter of R-E-R-M- & J-D-R-M-, 29 I&N Dec. 202 (A.G. 2025).

  33. Matter of S-E-M-Z-, 29 I&N Dec. 680 (BIA 2026).

  34. Matter of M-E-V-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 227, 243 (BIA 2014).

  35. Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1996).

  36. Matter of M-E-V-G- at 243 (quoting Henriquez-Rivas v. Holder, 707 F.3d 1081, 1089 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc)). The court in Henriquez-Rivas added at 1090 “We mean only to suggest that evidence of perceptions in society as a whole is not the exclusive means of demonstrating social visibility.”

  37. Matter of E-R-A-L-, 27 I&N Dec. 767, 772 (BIA 2020).

  38. E-R-A-L- was actually vacated on appeal by the Ninth Circuit in Albizures-Lopez v. Barr, No. 20-70640 (9th Cir. Dec. 10, 2020), Not Reported in Fed. Rptr., 2020 WL 7406164.

  39. Matter of S-E-M-Z- supra at 685.

  40. Id. at 686.

  41. Id. at 684.

  42. Id.

  43. Hathaway and Foster, The Law of Refugee Status (Second Edition) (Cambridge Univ. Press) at 55.

  44. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(3) (2019). See also Lin v. Garland, 81 F.4th 629, 637 (6th Cir. 2023) (quoting these factors, and finding that Department of State reports offered by the government “shed little light on these reasonableness factors….”).

  45. Matter of S-A-, 22 I&N Dec. 1328 (BIA 2000).

  46. See, e.g., Hernandez-Chacon v. Barr, 948 F.3d 94, 104 (2d Cir. 2020) (“This Circuit has held that "an imputed political opinion, whether correctly or incorrectly attributed, can constitute a ground of political persecution within the meaning of the Immigration and Nationality Act.").

  47. Chen v. Holder, 607 F.3d 511 (7th Cir. 2010).

  48. Delgado v. Mukasey, 508 F.3d 702, 707 (2d Cir. 2007).

  49. S-E-M-Z- at 685-86.

  50. Amezcua-Preciado v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 943 F.3d 1337, 1344 (11th Cir. 2019).

  51. See Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 388 (BIA 2014).

  52. Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018).

  53. Conde Quevedo v. Barr, 947 F.3d 1238, 1243 (9th Cir. 2020).

  54. Id.

  55. Morales v. Garland, 51 F.4th 553, 558 (4th Cir. 2022).

  56. Id. at 558-59 (citing Hernandez-Avalos v. Lynch, 784 F.3d 236, 246 (4th Cir. 2019).

  57. Matter of ___, Appeal ID 5347160 (BIA 2025) (unpublished), available in Ben Winograd’s excellent Index of Unpublished Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Immigrant & Refugee Appellate Center, LLC) citing Meza Diaz v. Garland, 118 F.4th 1180, 1189 & n.3 (9th Cir. 2024) (recognizing as a cognizable PSG “member[s] of the Meza family from Magueyes, Turicato.”).

  58. Mazariegos-Rodas v. Garland, 122 F. 4th 655, 665-66 (6th Circuit 2024).

JEFF CHASE