The Supreme Court’s decision cements a rigid hierarchy: immigration judges and the Board of Immigration Appeals sit as the primary gatekeepers of life-or-death asylum claims, while federal appeals courts are reduced to narrow legal reviewers. By insisting that only evidence “so compelling that no reasonable factfinder” could disagree will justify overturning the BIA, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s opinion locks in a steep, nearly insurmountable standard for desperate families like Douglas Humberto Urias-Orellana’s.
