The Ninth Circuit has denied a petition for review filed by a Salvadoran man denied special rule cancellation of removal after evidence showed he had served in a Salvadoran army battalion linked to civil war-era atrocities, holding that the statutory persecutor bar contains no implied defense for those who assisted in persecution under duress.
Giving only limited weight to the Attorney General's own interpretation given its inconsistent history on the question, the Court nonetheless independently concluded that the ordinary meanings of "assisted" and "otherwise participated" encompass involuntary conduct, and that Congress's explicit use of "voluntarily" in numerous neighboring INA provisions, but not in the persecutor bar, confirms the omission was intentional. The Court held that international refugee law materials cited by the petitioner and amici showed a duress defense is a possible and sensible reading, but not one Congress actually wrote into the statute, and it denied the petition based on the immigration judge's unchallenged finding that the petitioner was not credible.
The full text of Perez-Castillo v. Blanche can be found here: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2026/09/08/21-70087.pdf