Zheng v. Ashcroft

Li Chen Zheng (plaintiff) was a citizen of China who was apprehended while trying to enter Guam. Zheng was in a disadvantaged position in China due to China’s one-child policy. The policy required that if a couple’s firstborn child was a boy, they could not have additional children. Although Zheng was the firstborn and a boy, his parents subsequently had two daughters. Human smugglers, known as snakeheads, brought Zheng and 150 other Chinese nationals to the United States (defendant) by sea. Zheng was taken into custody and was a material witness against the smugglers, who tortured Zheng and the other passengers. Zheng even gave the names of the smugglers. The same day Zheng testified, a snakehead threatened Zheng that he would be killed if he was not careful. Zheng feared returning to China because he feared that he would be killed for his testimony by the snakeheads with the collusion of Chinese officials. For example, Zheng reported that prior to boarding the boat, he saw the snakeheads giving cartons of cigarettes to the harbor police. An immigration judge (IJ) granted Zheng protection under the Convention against Torture (the convention), which the United States Senate had ratified, citing the evidence of collusion between the smugglers and the Chinese government as constituting acquiescence. The convention prohibited government involvement in torture either directly or through the acquiescence of government officials or persons acting on behalf of a government. As implemented through legislation in the United States, a government official’s acquiescence in acts of torture did not require actual knowledge but required that the official was aware that torture would occur and then failed to act to prevent the torture from occurring. By requiring awareness rather than knowledge, the United States Senate made it clear that a government official’s acquiescence included both actual knowledge of acts of torture and willful blindness to such acts. The Immigration and Naturalization Service appealed the IJ’s decision. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) reversed, ruling that an applicant must show that a government official acquiesces to a nongovernment group’s acts of torture through willful acceptance in order to receive relief. The BIA ordered Zheng deported to China. Zheng appealed.