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CINCINNATI, OH – The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a petition from two Guatemalan brothers who sought asylum in the United States, ruling that their claims failed to show that persecution by local gangs in Guatemala was based on their indigenous heritage. According to court records, Cristian and Kevin Macario-Tzoc entered the U.S. illegally with their mother in 2014, fleeing after gang members threatened their family and injured one of the boys. They claimed asylum on the grounds that they were part of a particular social group: "Indigenous Maya Quiche family members of victims of extortion." An immigration judge denied the claims in 2020, stating that the group was not legally recognizable under asylum law and that the threats were motivated by gang extortion rather ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Justice has reinstated a 2020 opinion holding that individuals who participated in the persecution of others are barred from asylum in the United States, even if they acted under coercion or duress. In a decision dated October 22, 2025, Attorney General Merrick Garland vacated a stay previously imposed on the Board of Immigration Appeals' March 16, 2021, ruling in the case Matter of Negusie, 29 I&N Dec. 285 (A.G. 2025). As a result, the opinion issued by former Attorney General William Barr in Matter of Negusie, 28 I&N Dec. 120 (A.G. 2020), once again becomes binding. The case involves a man who entered the U.S. as a stowaway in 2004 and was initially found ineligible for asylum and withholding of removal under the “persecutor bar...