Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/644

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486

INS v. ELIAS-ZACARIAS Stevens, J., dissenting

Today the Court holds that respondent’s fear of persecution is not “on account of. . . political opinion” for two reasons. First, he failed to prove that his refusal to join the guerrillas was politically motivated; indeed, he testified that he was at least in part motivated by a fear that government forces would retaliate against him or his family if he joined the guerrillas. See ante, at 482–483. Second, he failed to prove that his persecutors’ motives were political. In particular, the Court holds that the persecutors’ implicit threat to retaliate against respondent “because of his refusal to fight with them,” ante, at 483, is not persecution on account of political opinion. I disagree with both parts of the Court’s reasoning. I A political opinion can be expressed negatively as well as affirmatively. A refusal to support a cause—by staying home on election day, by refusing to take an oath of allegiance, or by refusing to step forward at an induction center—can express a political opinion as effectively as an affirmative statement or affirmative conduct. Even if the refusal is motivated by nothing more than a simple desire to continue living an ordinary life with one’s family, it is the kind of political expression that the asylum provisions of the statute were intended to protect. As the Court of Appeals explained in Bolanos-Hernandez v. INS, 767 F. 2d 1277 (CA9 1985): “Choosing to remain neutral is no less a political decision than is choosing to affiliate with a particular political faction. Just as a nation’s decision to remain neutral is a political one, see, e. g., Neutrality Act of 1939, 22 U. S. C. §§ 441–465 (1982), so is an individual’s. When a person is aware of contending political forces and afcould have crafted a narrower definition, it chose to authorize the Attorney General to determine which, if any, eligible refugees should be denied asylum.”