Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/479

 502us2$24h 01-22-99 08:25:35 PAGES OPINPGT

Cite as: 502 U. S. 314 (1992)

321

Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.

new evidence, which, according to the Court of Appeals, entitled Doherty to have his deportation proceedings reopened. The Court of Appeals also held that Attorney General Thornburgh had erred in determining, on a motion for reopening, that respondent was not entitled to the ultimate relief requested. Citing this Court’s decision in INS v. Abudu, 485 U. S. 94 (1988), the Court of Appeals held that such a determination could not be made for the mandatory relief of withholding of deportation, and that once an alien establishes a prima facie case for withholding of deportation and brings new evidence, the Attorney General is without discretion to deny the motion to reopen. In addition, the Court of Appeals held that the Attorney General had abused his discretion by relying on foreign policy concerns in denying respondent’s motion to reopen his claim for asylum. After examining the legislative history of § 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Court of Appeals concluded that Congress intended foreign policy interests to play no role in asylum determinations. The Attorney General had abused his discretion “in denying Doherty’s application for reasons that congress sought to eliminate from asylum cases. . . .” 908 F. 2d, at 1121. We granted certiorari, 498 U. S. 1081 (1991), and now decide that the Court of Appeals placed a much too narrow limit on the authority of the Attorney General to deny a motion to reopen deportation proceedings. The Attorney General based his decision to deny respondent’s motion to reopen on three independent grounds. First, he concluded that respondent had not presented new evidence warranting reopening; second, he found that respondent had waived his claims to asylum and withholding of deportation by withdrawing them at his deportation hearing in September 1986; and, third, he concluded that the motion to reopen was properly denied because Doherty’s involvement in serious nonpolitical crimes in Northern Ireland made him statutorily ineli-