Negusie v. Holder

Negusie v. Holder
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 5, 2008 Decided March 3, 2009
Full case name	Daniel Girmai Negusie, Petitioner v. Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General
Citations	555 U.S. 511 (more) 129 S.Ct. 1159; 2008 US LEXIS 2444
Prior history	Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Subsequent history	231 Fed. Appx. 325, reversed and remanded.
Holding
The BIA and Fifth Circuit misapplied Fedorenko as mandating that whether an alien is compelled to assist in persecution is immaterial for prosecutor-bar purposes. The BIA must interpret the statute, free from this mistaken legal premise, in the first instance
Court membership
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · David Souter Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Case opinions
Majority	Kennedy, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Souter, Ginsburg, Alito
Concur/dissent	Stevens, joined by Breyer
Dissent	Thomas

Negusie v. Holder (formerly Negusie v. Mukasey), 555 U.S. 511 (2009), was a legal case in which the United States Supreme Court agreed to review the issue whether the bar to asylum in the United States for persecutors applies to asylum applicants who have been the target of credible threats of harm or torture in their home countries if they refuse to further participate in the acts of persecution. At issue is whether Daniel Negusie, who says he was forced to assist in the mistreatment of prisoners in Eritrea under threat of execution, may nonetheless apply for asylum because any assistance he rendered was provided under duress.

The court held that the BIA and United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit erred when they evaluated Negusie's asylum petition because they presumed it mandatory that an alien's coercion to persecute was immaterial when determining whether the "persecutor bar" applies.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 555
• Fedorenko v. United States (1981)
• List of United States Supreme Court cases

Further reading

• Lonegan, Bryan (2011). "Sinners or Saints: Child Soldiers and the Persecutor Bar to Asylum After Negusie v. Holder". Boston College Third World Law Journal 31 (1): 71–99. http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/twlj/vol31/iss1/4.