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The ruling establishes a stringent legal standard known as “substantial evidence” review. Under this mandate, federal appellate courts are now required to give extraordinary deference to the factual conclusions reached by immigration judges and the BIA. In practical terms, this means that a higher court is prohibited from overturning a factual finding simply because it might have reached a different conclusion if it had heard the case first. Instead, the higher court can only intervene if the evidence is so overwhelming and contradictory that no “reasonable factfinder” could possibly have agreed with the original decision. This creates a remarkably high bar for reversal, effectively insulating the vast majority of immigration court decisions from factual challenges.
