Morgan v. Garland, No. 24-1280 (1st Cir. 2024)
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Akeish Johnioy Morgan, a Jamaican national, entered the United States illegally on June 11, 2022. Prior to his entry, a Jamaican justice of the peace issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of murder, unlawful possession of a firearm, and wounding with intent. Morgan sought review of a Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) order dismissing his appeal from an Immigration Judge's (IJ) denial of his applications for asylum, statutory withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).
The IJ found Morgan ineligible for asylum, statutory withholding, and CAT withholding due to the warrants issued against him in Jamaica, concluding there were serious reasons to believe he committed a serious nonpolitical crime. The BIA affirmed this decision, agreeing that the warrants and supporting evidence barred Morgan's eligibility for non-CAT deferral relief. The BIA also upheld the IJ's determination that Morgan was ineligible for CAT deferral, finding that the beatings Morgan claimed to have suffered did not constitute past torture and that he failed to demonstrate a sufficient likelihood of future torture upon his return to Jamaica.
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reviewed the case. The court upheld the agency's serious-nonpolitical-crime finding, agreeing it was supported by substantial evidence, thus sustaining Morgan's ineligibility for asylum, statutory withholding, and CAT withholding. However, the court found that the agency's likelihood-of-future-torture finding, which determined Morgan's ineligibility for CAT deferral, was based on an erroneously narrow legal definition of torture. Consequently, the court granted Morgan's petition in part, vacating the CAT deferral determination and remanding the case to the BIA to reassess the likelihood of future torture using the correct legal definition.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on November 12, 2024.
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