The Board of Immigration Appeals has determined that a particular social group defined by the alien’s sex or sex and nationality, standing alone, is overbroad and insufficiently particular to be cognizable. The reasoning provided is pretty hollow. The BIA attempts to distinguish the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Perdomo v. Holder by stating it predates the three part immutability-social distinction-particularity test laid out in Matter of M-E-V-G-, but the BIA established these three criteria in much earlier decisions that pre-date Perdomo. The BIA then fell back on its analysis that women of a particular nationality encompass too broad of a group with differing ages, socioeconomic statuses, etc. to be particularized. The BIA further concluded that recognizing a sex-based particular social group would impermissibly create a sixth protected group for asylum.
In a post-Chevron world, this decision just screams for a circuit court to roundly obliterate the absurdity of the BIA’s particular social group caselaw.
The full text of Matter of M-E-S-G- can be found here:
https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1408366/dl?inline