By: Derek Hawkins//October 17, 2017//
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Cirilo G. Garcia v. Jefferson B. Sessions III
Case No.: 16-3234
Officials: MANION and ROVNER, Circuit Judges, and COLEMAN, District Judge.
Focus: Asylum Statute
Petitioner Cirilo Garcia is a native citizen of Honduras currently subject to a reinstated order of removal. Federal regulations say that aliens in his position have no right to apply for asylum. Garcia argues that these regulations are inconsistent with the general asylum statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(1). Following circuit precedent, we initially held that Garcia lacked standing to challenge the regulations because of the discretionary nature of asylum. However, we now grant Garcia’s petition for rehearing to address the standing question. The government now agrees that Garcia has standing.
We agree with the parties that Garcia has standing to file this petition, and as we discuss below, anything to the contrary in this court’s precedent will be overruled. However, on the merits we conclude that 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(5) plainly prohibits aliens in Garcia’s position from applying for asylum. Therefore, we deny his petition for review.
Affirmed