On Monday, Dec. 1, in Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, the Supreme Court will consider the federal judiciary’s role in asylum cases as it weighs whether a federal court of appeals must defer to the Board of Immigration Appeals’ judgment on an asylum seeker’s claims of persecution when it reviews the individual’s case.

In their brief on the merits, the family urged the Supreme Court to side with the courts of appeals that have undertaken an independent review of “whether the mistreatment endured by a noncitizen meets the legal standard for ‘persecution,’” contending that, if lawmakers wanted to prevent such a review, they could have used “express language requiring deference” to the Board of Immigration Appeals, as they do for other “administrative decisions” concerning the INA. The family added that requiring such deference “would effectively resurrect” Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council – a 1984 case requiring courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous laws that the court overturned last year – “in asylum cases.”