CA1 on Social Group: Ferreira v. Garland

Ferreira v. Garland

"Pamlar Ferreira petitions for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") upholding the denial of her application for withholding of removal. Ferreira requests that we remand the case so that the BIA may consider anew whether withholding is appropriate on the basis of her two asserted particular social groups: "family" and "Trinidadian women who oppose Trinidad's social norms in that they do not want to be subjected to abuse or violent sexual abuse by family members or significant others based on their gender." We grant the petition in part, vacate the BIA's decision as to Ferreira's gender-based claim, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. ...  In sum, the BIA rejected a PSG of its own devising and not the social group Ferreira advanced. Its characterization substantively altered the meaning of Ferreira's proffered PSG and amounts to legal error."

[Hats way off to SangYeob Kim, Gilles Bissonnett, Daniel V. Ward, Marianne Staniunas, Abigail Alfaro, Michelle Marie Mlacker, Colleen S. Roberts, Deborah Anker, Sabrineh Ardalan, Nancy Kelly and John Willshire Carrera!  Listen to the oral argument here.]