Nasrallah v. Barr, 140 S. Ct. 1683 (U.S. 2020)
Nasrallah v. Barr is a landmark immigration and federal courts decision clarifying the scope of judicial review available to noncitizens seeking protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).
Whether 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(C), which bars judicial review of final orders of removal for certain criminal aliens (subject to limited exceptions), precludes courts of appeals from reviewing factual challenges to a CAT order issued in the same removal proceeding.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act's judicial review provisions, a court of appeals may review a noncitizen's CAT claims only via a petition for review of a final order of removal, see 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(4), but a CAT order is not itself a final order of removal because it does not determine removability or order removal within the meaning of 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(47)(A). Therefore, the criminal-alien bar in § 1252(a)(2)(C) applies to review of the final order of removal but does not strip jurisdiction to review a separate CAT order. Factual challenges to CAT determinations are reviewable under the substantial evidence standard provided in § 1252(b)(4)(B).
Courts of appeals retain jurisdiction to review factual challenges to CAT orders because such orders are distinct from final orders of removal. The criminal-alien review bar in § 1252(a)(2)(C) does not preclude review of the factual basis for a CAT determination. The judgment of the Eleventh Circuit was vacated and the case remanded.
Nasrallah preserves meaningful appellate oversight of CAT determinations by confirming that courts of appeals may review factual challenges to those decisions under the substantial-evidence standard. It clarifies the scope of the final order of removal and the reach of the criminal-alien review bar, resolving a circuit split. For law students, the case is an instructive example of textual statutory interpretation, the interaction between administrative adjudication and judicial review, and how jurisdiction-stripping provisions are narrowly read to avoid silently eliminating review of high-stakes factual determinations.