Ernesto Adolfo Recinos De Leon v. Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General

This case presents for review a literally incomprehensible opinion by an immigration judge (IJ), denying petitioner’s applications for asylum and withholding of removal. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), pursuant to the “streamlining” regulation, 8 C.F.R. •§ 1003.1(e)(4) (2004), affirmed without opinion. When the agency’s only. explanation of its final action is incoherent, we may not substantively review it without violating basic principles of judicial review. We therefore grant the petition and remand the case to the BIA.

I

Petitioner Ernesto Adolfo Recinos de Leon (Recinos) is a Guatemalan national who fled that country and arrived in the United States in 1991. In 1997, Recinos filed an application for asylum. Shortly thereafter, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) commenced removal proceedings against him.

According to Recinos’s testimony before the IJ, Recinos belonged to one of five Ladino (i.e., European-descended or mestizo ) families in Huehueténango, a region of Guatemala predominantly populated by indigenous people. While a student, in Guatemala "City in the 1980s, Recinos participated in protests against the army’s recruitment practices…