## Facts

- Hui Lin Huang and her husband, Zeng Yong Zhou, are natives and citizens of the People’s Republic of China who entered the United States without proper documents and were placed in removal proceedings.
- Huang sought asylum, withholding of removal, and Convention Against Torture relief based on fear that China’s family-planning policy would be coercively enforced against her in Fujian Province because she had two children.
- Huang testified that local policy was “one birth, IUD; two births, sterilization,” and that she feared forced sterilization upon return.
- She also testified she would face a large fine (about 20,000–25,000 RMB) that she could not pay, leading to detention and damage to her home.
- The Immigration Judge found Huang credible, accepted her account, and granted relief after finding a genuine and objectively reasonable fear of persecution.
- The Board of Immigration Appeals reversed, treating the IJ’s prediction that Huang would be forcibly sterilized as not “fact-finding” subject to clear-error review, and giving greater weight to State Department reports suggesting coercive sterilization was less common in Fujian.

## Issues

1. Whether an IJ’s prediction that a future persecutory event will occur upon removal is a factual finding subject to BIA clear-error review.
2. Whether the BIA may review de novo an IJ’s determination that an applicant’s fear of persecution is “objectively reasonable.”
3. Whether, and to what extent, the BIA may determine the weight given to State Department country reports when evaluating future-persecution claims.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit granted the petition for review and remanded.
- The court held that an IJ’s finding that a future persecutory event will occur if the applicant is removed is a finding of fact reviewable by the BIA only for clear error.
- The court held that the BIA may apply de novo review to the legal determination whether the applicant has shown an objectively reasonable well-founded fear of persecution.
- The court held that the BIA may determine the weight to be accorded to State Department country reports.
- Remand was required because the BIA applied the wrong standard of review by treating the IJ’s future-event finding as outside clear-error review.

## Legal Principles

- Predictions about what will likely happen to an applicant upon return (including likelihood of forced sterilization) are factual findings for clear-error review by the BIA.
- The “objective reasonableness” of an applicant’s fear is an ultimate legal determination (or mixed application question) the BIA may review de novo.
- State Department country reports are probative evidence, and the BIA may decide their weight, but they do not permit the BIA to avoid deference owed to supported IJ factual findings.
- The BIA may reject an IJ’s future-event finding as speculative only where the IJ lacks an adequate evidentiary basis; otherwise the finding must be evaluated under clear-error review.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit required the BIA to treat an IJ’s reasoned prediction of future persecution as fact-finding subject to clear-error review, while permitting de novo review of whether those facts satisfy the objective component of a well-founded fear and allowing the BIA to assign weight to State Department reports.


Hui Lin Huang v. Holder, 677 F.3d 130 (2d Cir. 2012)