{"id":648,"date":"2011-01-26T15:09:27","date_gmt":"2011-01-26T20:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=648"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:59:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:59:28","slug":"you-cant-be-deported-for-misunderstanding-thanksgiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/01\/26\/you-cant-be-deported-for-misunderstanding-thanksgiving\/","title":{"rendered":"You Can\u2019t Be Deported for Misunderstanding Thanksgiving"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Stephan\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Last week,\u00a0the Ninth Circuit reversed an immigration court decision<\/a>\u00a0that denied political asylum to a Chinese immigrant who claimed to have been persecuted in China for practicing Christianity.\u00a0 The immigrant, Lei Li, was initially denied asylum relief because the Immigration Judge found Li\u2019s story of persecution to be not credible.\u00a0 The reason for the IJ\u2019s adverse credibility finding: Li thought that Thanksgiving was a Christian holiday.<\/p>\n

The IJ, believing Thanksgiving to be\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0a Christian holiday, viewed Li\u2019s understanding of Thanksgiving as an indication that Li was not really a Christian.\u00a0 Accordingly, the IJ believed that Li must have fabricated his story of persecution, and Li\u2019s asylum petition was denied.<\/p>\n

The Ninth Circuit properly reversed in\u00a0Li v. Holder<\/em>, holding that \u201can IJ\u2019s perception of a petitioner\u2019s ignorance of religious doctrine is not a proper basis for an adverse credibility finding.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Li\u2019s case was remanded for further proceedings in immigration court.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Interestingly, the Ninth Circuit pointed out that historical American figures including George Washington and Abraham Lincoln saw Thanksgiving as a Christian holiday, so it\u2019s not even clear that Li\u2019s understanding of Thanksgiving was incorrect.\u00a0 More importantly, however, is the Ninth Circuit\u2019s clear directive that an IJ cannot simply deny relief if it thinks the immigrant-petitioner lacks adequate knowledge about his claimed religion.\u00a0 That is, so-called \u201cBible quizzes\u201d and other religious tests are improper bases of credibility determinations in the immigration context.<\/p>\n

Immigration cases make up about 30% of the Ninth Circuit\u2019s total caseload, and many (if not most) of those cases involve claims of religious persecution.\u00a0 Various forms and intensities of Bible quizzes have been used in the past to ferret out the incredible petitioners from the credible ones (see, e.g.<\/em>,\u00a0this\u00a02008 case,\u00a0Cosa v. Mukasey<\/em><\/a>), and the\u00a0Li<\/em>\u00a0court\u2019s bright-line prohibition on such quizzes should clarify, at long last, that they are valueless.\u00a0 The\u00a0Li<\/em>\u00a0decision, therefore, constitutes a powerful precedent that protects the religious beliefs\u2014and religious ignorance\u2014of immigrants seeking removal relief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Stephan\u00a0 Last week,\u00a0the Ninth Circuit reversed an immigration court decision\u00a0that denied political asylum to a Chinese immigrant who claimed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-as","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}