In a pointed rebuke of the Department of Justice under Attorney General Pam Bondi, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has tossed out a long-standing deportation order against a Nepali couple, Niranjan and Gita Khanal.
The court ruled that the government made a fundamental legal error by focusing so much on Niranjan’s “shaky” testimony that it completely ignored a mountain of paper evidence suggesting he was actually in danger.
This case, which has been bouncing around the system for nearly two decades, centers on the Khanals’ claim that they were targeted by Maoist guerrillas in Nepal due to Niranjan’s political ties. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) and an initial judge had previously slammed the door on their asylum request, essentially calling Niranjan a liar because his dates didn’t perfectly line up.
The “Fatal” Flaw in the Government’s Logic
The appellate judges weren’t interested in whether Niranjan was the most polished witness. Instead, they focused on a legal principle: just because a person’s story has some holes doesn’t mean their evidence is garbage.
The Khanals had submitted a stack of documents, including:
- Letters from the Kathmandu police certifying Maoist threats.
- Threatening notes from the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) demanding “donations.”
- Newspaper articles naming Niranjan as a man in hiding.
- Testimony from friends who backed up his story of political activism.
Despite this, the BIA and the lower judge deemed the lack of credibility “fatal” to the whole case. The First Circuit said that was a major mistake. According to the court, the law requires the government to look at the “objective” evidence—the paper trail—even if they don’t like the witness’s tone or memory.
A Second Chance for the Khanals
The court’s decision leaned heavily on a previous case, Aguilar-Escoto, which established that immigration judges can’t “turn a blind eye” to relevant documents just because they find a petitioner’s testimony inconsistent.
The judges noted that while a person might struggle to remember if they joined a political party in 1996 or 1998, a written death threat from a guerrilla group is a “salient fact” that cannot be ignored. By failing to even mention these documents in their final ruling, the immigration authorities committed a legal error.
This ruling doesn’t mean the Khanals are automatically granted asylum. It does, however, force the BIA to reopen the file and actually read the evidence they skipped the first time. For now, the couple remains in the United States, their future once again in the hands of a system that has been processing their lives since 2007.
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