PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ________________ No. 18-2925 _______________ SANTHAKUMAR SATHANTHRASA, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ________________ On Petition for Review from the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA No. A209-240-315) Immigration Judge: Walter A. Durling ________________ Argued January 14, 2020 Before: JORDAN, GREENAWAY, JR., and KRAUSE, Circuit Judges (Opinion filed: July 30, 2020) Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran [Argued] 875 Avenue of the Americas Suite 906 New York, NY 10001 Counsel for Petitioner Todd J. Cochran [Argued] United States Department of Justice Office of Immigration Litigation P.O. Box 878 Ben Franklin Station Washington, DC 20044 Counsel for Respondent __________ OPINION OF THE COURT __________ KRAUSE, Circuit Judge. To be eligible for withholding of removal, a noncitizen must show a clear probability of future persecution upon removal to her country of origin, so applicants granted withholding will necessarily have satisfied the lesser standard of a well-founded fear of persecution required for eligibility for asylum. But while withholding is mandatory if the statutory criteria are satisfied, the decision to grant asylum is ultimately left to the discretion of the Attorney General and, between the two forms of relief, only the latter provides a pathway to legal permanent resident status and a basis to petition for admission 2 of family members as derivative asylees. So the immigration regulations provide that when a petitioner is denied asylum but then granted withholding, the denial of asylum “shall be reconsidered,” and the factors the immigration judge (IJ) must consider “will include” not only the “reasons for the denial” but also “reasonable alternatives available” to the petitioner for family reunification. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(e); accord id. § 208.16(e).1 Here, Petitioner alleges that the IJ failed to consider those factors and therefore abused his discretion. We agree and thus will grant the petition, vacate the order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (the BIA or the Board), and remand with instructions that the IJ properly reconsider the denial of asylum. I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND2 Petitioner Santhakumar Sathanthrasa is a citizen of Sri Lanka, a country whose modern history has been marked by 1 8 C.F.R. §§ 208.16(e) and 1208.16(e) are identical provisions, the latter of which applies to the BIA. See Huang v. INS, 436 F.3d 89, 90 n.1 (2d Cir. 2006). The parties used these provisions interchangeably throughout the briefing, but for concision and consistency we will refer only to § 1208.16(e). 2 Sathanthrasa is entitled to “a rebuttable presumption of credibility on appeal,” 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii), because although the IJ indicated that he was not “overly enamored 3 civil unrest and violence among the Sinhalese, Moor, and Tamil populations. See Mohideen v. Gonzales, 416 F.3d 567, 568 (7th Cir. 2005). Sathanthrasa is Tamil and seeks asylum based on the violence that ethnic minority group has faced at the hands of not only government forces, but also the Karuna Group (otherwise known as the People’s Liberation Tigers). The Karuna Group is a paramilitary organization led by a former commander of the Liberation ...
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