## Facts

- Teresa de Jesus Castillo-Villagra and her two adult daughters, Nicaraguan nationals, entered the United States without inspection and conceded deportability.
- They sought asylum and withholding of deportation, alleging persecution risk in Nicaragua based on anti-Sandinista political opinion.
- An Immigration Judge denied asylum and withholding after hearings in late 1987 and early 1988.
- While the appeal was pending before the BIA, Nicaragua held elections in which Violeta Chamorro and an anti-Sandinista coalition (UNO) won, though reports indicated Sandinistas retained control of the army and police.
- The BIA took administrative notice of the election results and related political developments and concluded that petitioners no longer had a well-founded fear because the Sandinistas were “no longer in power.”
- The BIA gave petitioners no advance notice that it would rely on administratively noticed post-hearing developments and provided no opportunity to submit evidence or argument about the effect of those developments on their individualized risk.

## Issues

1. Whether due process is violated when the BIA takes administrative notice of post-hearing political changes and denies asylum/withholding based on those noticed matters without notice and an opportunity to respond.
2. Whether the BIA may treat debatable, predictive conclusions about the effect of political change on persecution risk as administratively noticeable “facts” dispositive of eligibility.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit granted the petition for review and reversed the BIA’s decision.
- The court held that the BIA’s use of administrative notice in this manner violated due process because the noticed matters were outcome-determinative and petitioners were not given a meaningful opportunity to rebut or explain their significance.
- The court distinguished between noticing indisputable historical events (election results) and adopting contested inferences and predictions (that the risk of persecution had ended).
- The case required further proceedings consistent with procedures allowing applicants to contest the implications of noticed country developments.

## Legal Principles

- Administrative notice may encompass widely known, indisputable facts (e.g., an election outcome), but not contested evaluative conclusions about how those events affect an applicant’s future persecution risk.
- When an agency relies on administratively noticed, extra-record matters that are dispositive (or effectively dispositive), due process requires notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond, rebut, and, where appropriate, supplement the record.
- An applicant must be allowed to address both (a) whether notice is appropriate and (b) what the noticed developments imply for the individualized well-founded-fear inquiry.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that the BIA denied petitioners due process by using administratively noticed post-hearing political developments to reject asylum and withholding without giving notice and a chance to contest the significance of those developments for their claimed fear of persecution.


Castillo-Villagra v. Immigr. & Naturalization Serv., 972 F.2d 1017 (9th Cir. 1992)