Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/639

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Cite as: 502 U. S. 478 (1992)

481

Opinion of the Court

II Section 208(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U. S. C. § 1158(a), authorizes the Attorney General, in his discretion, to grant asylum to an alien who is a “refugee” as defined in the Act, i. e., an alien who is unable or unwilling to return to his home country “because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” § 101(a)(42)(A), 8 U. S. C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). See INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U. S. 421, 423, 428, n. 5 (1987). The BIA’s determination that Elias-Zacarias was not eligible for asylum must be upheld if “supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole.” 8 U. S. C. § 1105a(a)(4). It can be reversed only if the evidence presented by Elias-Zacarias was such that a reasonable factfinder would have to conclude that the requisite fear of persecution existed. NLRB v. Columbian Enameling & Stamping Co., 306 U. S. 292, 300 (1939).1 The Court of Appeals found reversal warranted. In its view, a guerrilla organization’s attempt to conscript a person into its military forces necessarily constitutes “persecution on account of. . . political opinion,” because “the person resisting forced recruitment is expressing a political opinion hostile to the persecutor and because the persecutors’ motive in carrying out the kidnapping is political.” 921 F. 2d, at 850. The first half of this seems to us untrue, and the second half irrelevant. 1 Quite beside the point, therefore, is the dissent’s assertion that “the record in this case is more than adequate to support the conclusion that this respondent’s refusal [to join the guerrillas] was a form of expressive conduct that constituted the statement of a ‘political opinion,’ ” post, at 488 (emphasis added). To reverse the BIA finding we must find that the evidence not only supports that conclusion, but compels it—and also compels the further conclusion that Elias-Zacarias had a well-founded fear that the guerrillas would persecute him because of that political opinion.