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A

It is well settled that “principles of Chevron deference are applicable to this statutory scheme.” INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U. S. 415, 424 (1999) . Congress has charged the Attorney General with administering the INA, and a “ruling by the Attorney General with respect to all questions of law shall be controlling.” 8 U. S. C. §1103(a)(1). Judicial deference in the immigration context is of special importance, for executive officials “exercise especially sensitive political functions that implicate questions of foreign relations.” INS v. Abudu, 485 U. S. 94, 100 (1988) . The Attorney General’s decision to bar an alien who has participated in persecution “may affect our relations with [the alien’s native] country or its neighbors. The judiciary is not well positioned to shoulder primary responsibility for assessing the likelihood and importance of such diplomatic repercussions.” Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U. S., at 425.

The Attorney General, in turn, has delegated to the BIA the “ ‘discretion and authority conferred upon the Attorney General by law’ ” in the course of “ ‘considering and determining cases before it.’ ” Ibid. (quoting 8 CFR §3.1(d)(1) (1998)). As a consequence, “the BIA should be accorded Chevron deference as it gives ambiguous statutory terms ‘concrete meaning through a process of case-by-case adjudication.’ ” Aguirre-Aguirre, supra, at 425 (quoting INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U. S. 421, 448–449 (1987) ). When the BIA has not spoken on “a matter that statutes place primarily in agency hands,” our ordinary rule is to remand to “giv[e] the BIA the opportunity to address the matter in the first instance in light of its own experience.” INS v. Orlando Ventura, 537 U. S. 12, 16–17 (2002) (per curiam).

B

The parties disagree over whether coercion or duress is relevant in determining if an alien assisted or otherwise participated in persecution. As there is substance to both contentions, we conclude that the statute has an ambiguity that the agency should address in the first instance.

Petitioner argues that the statute’s plain language makes clear that involuntary acts do not implicate the persecutor bar because “ ‘persecution’ ” presumes moral blameworthiness. Brief for Petitioner 23–28. He invokes principles of criminal culpability, concepts of international law, and the rule of lenity. Id., at 28–45. Those arguments may be persuasive in determining whether a particular agency interpretation is reasonable, but they do not demonstrate that the statute is unambiguous. Petitioner all but conceded as much at argument in this Court when he indicated that the BIA has discretion to construe the duress defense in either a narrow or a broad way. Tr. of Oral Arg. 20–24.

The Government, on the other hand, asserts that the statute does not allow petitioner’s construction. “The statutory text,” the Government says, “directly answers that question: there is no exception” for conduct that is coerced because Congress did not include one. Brief for Respondent 11. We disagree. The silence is not conclusive. The question is whether the statutory text mandates that coerced actions must be deemed assistance in persecution. On that point the statute, in its precise terms, is not explicit. Nor is this a case where it is clear that Congress had an intention on the precise question at issue. Cf. Cardoza-Fonseca, supra, at 448–449.

The Government, like the BIA and the Court of Appeals, relies on Fedorenko to provide the answer. This reliance is not without some basis, as the Court there held that voluntariness was not required with respect to another persecutor bar. 449 U. S., at 512. To the extent, however, the Government deems Fedorenko to be controlling, it is in error.

In Fedorenko, the Court interpreted the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 (DPA), 62 Stat. 1009. The DPA was enacted “to enable European refugees driven from their homelands by the [second world] war to emigrate to the United States without regard to traditional immigration quotas.” 449 U. S., at 495. Section 2(b) of the DPA provides relief to “any displaced person or refugee as defined in Annex I of the Constitution of the International Refugee Organization” of the United Nations (IRO Constitution). 62 Stat. 1009. The IRO Constitution, as codified by Congress, excludes any individual “who can be shown: (a) to have assisted the enemy in persecuting civil populations of countries, Members of the United Nations; or (b) to have voluntarily assisted the enemy forces since the outbreak of the second world war in their operations against the United Nations.” Annex I, Part II, §2, 62 Stat. 3051–3052.

The Fedorenko Court held that “an individual’s service as a concentration camp armed guard—whether voluntary or involuntary—made him ineligible for a visa” under §2(a) of the IRO Constitution. 449 U. S., at 512. That Congress did not adopt a voluntariness requirement for §2(a), the Court noted, “is plain from comparing §2(a) with §2(b), which excludes only those individuals who ‘voluntarily assisted the enemy forces.’ ” Ibid. The Court relied on the principle of statutory construction that “the deliberate omission of the word ‘voluntary’ from §2(a) compels the conclusion that the statute made all those who assisted in persecution of civilians ineligible for visas.” Ibid.

Fedorenko does not compel the same conclusion in the case now before us. The textual structure of the statute in Fedorenko (“voluntary” is in one subsection but not the other) is not part of the statutory framework considered here. Congress did not use the word “voluntary” in any subsection of the persecutor bar, so its omission cannot carry the same significance.

The difference between the statutory scheme in Fedorenko and the one here is confirmed when we “ ‘look not only to the particular statutory language, but to the design of the statute as a whole and to its object and policy.’ ” Dada v. Mukasey, 554 U. S. 1 , ___ (2008) (slip op., at 13) (quoting Gozlon-Peretz v. United States, 498 U. S. 395, 407 (1991) ). Both statutes were enacted to reflect principles set forth in international agreements, but the principles differ in significant respects.

As discussed, Congress enacted the DPA in 1948 as part of an international effort to address individuals who were forced to leave their homelands during and after the second World War. Fedorenko, supra, at 495. The DPA excludes those who “voluntarily assisted the enemy forces since the outbreak of the second world war,” 62 Stat. 3052, as well as all who “assisted the enemy in persecuting civil populations of countries,” id., at 3051. The latter exclusion clause makes no reference to culpability. The exclusion of even those involved in nonculpable, involuntary assistance in Nazi persecution, as an expert testified in Fedorenko, may be “ ‘[b]ecause the crime against humanity that is involved in the concentration camp puts it into a different category.’ ” 449 U. S., at 511, n. 32.

The persecutor bar in this case, by contrast, was enacted as part of the Refugee Act of 1980. Unlike the DPA, which was enacted to address not just the post war refugee problem but also the Holocaust and its horror, the Refugee Act was designed to provide a general rule for the ongoing treatment of all refugees and displaced persons. As this Court has twice recognized, “ ‘one of Congress’ primary purposes’ in passing the Refugee Act was to implement the principles agreed to in the 1967 United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, Jan. 31, 1967, 19 U. S. T. 6224, T. I. A. S. 6577 (1968),” as well as the “United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 189 U. N. T. S. 150 (July 28, 1951), reprinted in 19 U. S. T. 6259.” Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U. S., at 427 (quoting Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U. S., at 436–437).

These authorities illustrate why Fedorenko, which addressed a different statute enacted for a different purpose, does not control the BIA’s interpretation of this persecutor bar. Whatever weight or relevance these various authorities may have in interpreting the statute should be considered by the agency in the first instance, and by any subsequent reviewing court, after our remand.

C

The Government argues that “if there were any ambiguity in the text, the Board’s determination that the bar contains no such exception is reasonable and thus controlling.” Brief for Respondent 11. Whether such an interpretation would be reasonable, and thus owed Chevron deference, is a legitimate question; but it is not now before us. The BIA deemed its interpretation to be mandated by Fedorenko, and that error prevented it from a full consideration of the statutory question here presented.

In denying relief in this case the BIA recited a rule that has developed in its own case law in reliance on Fedorenko: “[A]n alien’s motivation and intent are irrelevant to the issue of whether he ‘assisted’ in persecution . . . [I]t is the objective effect of an alien’s actions which is controlling.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 6a. The rule is based on three earlier decisions: Matter of Laipenieks, 18 I. & N. Dec. 433 (1983); Matter of Fedorenko, 19 I. & N. Dec. 57; and Matter of Rodriguez-Majano, 19 I. & N. Dec. 811 (1988).

In Matter of Laipenieks, the BIA applied the Court’s Fedorenko analysis of the DPA to a different postwar statute, which provided for the deportation of anyone associated with the Nazis who “ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated” in persecution based on a protected ground. 8 U. S. C. §1182(a)(3)(E)(i). Finding no agency or judicial decision on point, the BIA relied on Fedorenko. It recognized that the unique structure of the Fedorenko statute was not present in §1182(a)(3)(E)(i), but the BIA nevertheless adopted wholesale the Fedorenko rule: “[A]s in Fedorenko, . . . the plain language of [§1182(a)(3)(E)(i)] mandates a literal interpretation, and the omission of an intent element compels the conclusion that [§1182(a)(3)(E)(i)] makes all those who assisted in the specific persecution deportable.” 18 I. & N. Dec., at 464. In other words, “particular motivations or intent . . . is not a relevant factor.” Ibid.

The second decision, Matter of Fedorenko, also dealt with §1182(a)(3)(E)(i), and it involved the same alien whose citizenship was revoked by this Court’s Fedorenko decision. This time the agency sought to deport him. Fedorenko responded by requesting suspension of deportation. He argued that, unlike the DPA’s bar on any assistance—voluntary or involuntary—in persecution, see Fedorenko, 449 U. S., at 512, the text and structure of §1182(a)(3)(E)(i) required deportation only of those who voluntarily assisted in persecuting others. The BIA rejected that distinction, noting that it was foreclosed by Matter of Laipenieks: “It may be, as [Fedorenko] argues, that his service at Treblinka was involuntary. . . . We need not resolve the issue, however, because as a matter of law [Fedorenko’s] motivations for serving as a guard at Treblinka are immaterial to the question of his deportability under” §1182(a)(3)(E)(i). 19 I. & N. Dec., at 69–70.

Later, the BIA applied this Court’s Fedorenko rule to the persecutor bar that is at issue in the present case. In Matter of Rodriguez-Majano, the BIA granted relief because the alien’s coerced conduct as a guerrilla was not persecution based on a protected ground. 19 I. & N. Dec., at 815–816. Nevertheless, in reaching its conclusion the BIA incorporated without additional analysis the Fedorenko rule as applied in Matter of Laipenieks and reiterated in Matter of Fedorenko. 19 I. & N. Dec., at 814–815. The BIA reaffirmed that “[t]he participation or assistance of an alien in persecution need not be of his own volition to bar him from relief.” Id., at 814 (citing Fedorenko, 449 U. S. 490 ).
Our reading of these decisions confirms that the BIA has not exercised its interpretive authority but, instead, has determined that Fedorenko controls. This mistaken assumption stems from a failure to recognize the inapplicability of the principle of statutory construction invoked in Fedorenko, as well as a failure to appreciate the differences in statutory purpose. The BIA is not bound to apply the Fedorenko rule that motive and intent are irrelevant to the persecutor bar at issue in this case. Whether the statute permits such an interpretation based on a different course of reasoning must be determined in the first instance by the agency.
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