Ming Dai is a Chinese national who sought asylum in the United States after entering the country on a tourist visa. Ming Dai sought relief as a “refugee” under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1158(b)(1), 1101(a)(42), as someone “unable or unwilling” to return to China “because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution … for failure or refusal to undergo [involuntary sterilization] or for other resistance to a coercive population control program.” The IJ weighed Ming Dai’s own testimony against conflicting evidence about his wife and daughter’s voluntary travel between the United States and China to hold that he was not a “refugee” within the meaning of the statute.

The BIA upheld the IJ’s ruling by finding that Manzanares failed to show “the requisite nexus between the harm he suffered and a protected ground for asylum or withholding of removal.”What does a showing of “requisite nexus” demand?Under immigration law, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i), by seeking asylum, Manzanares had to first establish he was a refugee—a process that requires a showing of “[past] persecution or a well-founded fear of [future] persecution on account of … membership in a particular social group.” Then, to secure a withholding of removal, he had to show his “life or freedom would be threatened” in Honduras “because of membership in a particular social group.”

An alien who has knowingly made a frivolous application for asylum is permanently ineligible for immigration benefits. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(d)(6). Notice is a prerequisite to a finding of frivolousness; before an application for asylum is declared frivolous, the alien seeking asylum must be given the statutorily-required notice.