Individual CAT Eligibility Permits Separate Disposition of Family Claims; Inadequate Briefing Forecloses Appellate Review

1. Introduction

The central substantive distinction in Chilingarian v. Blanche is between sharing evidence and sharing eligibility for immigration protection. Family members may rely on common events and testimony, but protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) requires an individualized showing. Unlike asylum, CAT protection is not available derivatively merely because a spouse or parent qualifies.

The petitioners—Siranush Chilingarian and her children, Siuzanna and Karen—were dual citizens of Armenia and Russia. Their claims arose principally from the mistreatment of Siranush’s husband, Artur, by his politically connected employers in Russia. An immigration judge (“IJ”) granted all four family members CAT protection against removal to Russia. The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) reversed the grants to the three petitioners, severed their cases from Artur’s, and remanded his case for further proceedings.

On judicial review, the Tenth Circuit rejected the preserved challenge to severance. Most other challenges failed because they were inadequately briefed or expressly abandoned. The decision therefore has two principal lessons: consolidated family proceedings do not eliminate each applicant’s CAT burden, and appellate review depends on developed, accurately supported arguments.

2. Background and Procedural History

The family’s evidence

Artur testified that he had worked for the wealthy and politically connected Petrosian family for more than fifteen years in Armenia and Russia. During approximately twelve years in Russia, he worked at a restaurant and a family member’s mansion in Kaluga. According to his testimony, the Petrosians prevented him from leaving through threats of violence.

In October 2021, Artur asked his employer, Artavazd Petrosian, for permission to return to Armenia to care for his sick mother. Artavazd and three other men allegedly kidnapped him and broke his arm. Artavazd also threatened that similar violence would be inflicted on Artur’s family and son if he disclosed the incident to hospital personnel. Several months later, the family fled through Mexico to the United States.

The immigration judge’s rulings

Each family member separately sought asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection. Artur also listed his wife and children as derivative beneficiaries of his asylum application. The IJ consolidated the proceedings and designated Artur the lead respondent.

The IJ found Artur credible but denied asylum and withholding of removal, as well as CAT protection against removal to Armenia. Those adverse rulings were not appealed to the BIA and were not challenged before the Tenth Circuit.

The IJ nevertheless granted CAT protection against removal to Russia to every family member. The decision emphasized the Petrosians’ control over Artur, their violence and government connections, their apparent ability to locate the family within Russia, and Artur’s knowledge of their businesses and dealings with officials. The IJ also relied on country-report evidence suggesting that Russian authorities would turn a blind eye to future torture.

Rather than separately analyzing each petitioner’s circumstances, however, the IJ assessed Artur’s claim and applied those findings to the other family members. At the conclusion of the hearings, counsel declined the IJ’s invitation to present additional witnesses.

The BIA’s intervention

DHS appealed on the ground that the IJ had not independently explained why each petitioner qualified for CAT protection. The BIA accepted Artur’s credibility but concluded that the findings concerning his mistreatment and fears for his family did not establish each petitioner’s likelihood of future torture without further applicant-specific findings.

The BIA severed the cases, vacated the petitioners’ CAT grants, and ordered their removal to Armenia or, alternatively, Russia. It remanded Artur’s case. Government counsel later explained at oral argument that his remand concerned further fact-finding on CAT’s state-action requirement.

The petitioners sought judicial review under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a). They also filed a motion to reopen with the BIA after seeking review; the opinion does not resolve that motion.

3. Summary of the Court’s Decision

The Tenth Circuit denied all three petitions. Its treatment of the principal issues was as follows:

This distinction matters: denial of the petitions does not mean the court substantively resolved every constitutional or evidentiary objection to the BIA’s decision.

4. Legal Framework and Reasoning

A. CAT protection is individual, not derivative

The opinion contrasts asylum’s statutory derivative-beneficiary provision, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(3)(A), with CAT protection under 8 C.F.R. §§ 1208.16(c), 1208.17, and 1208.18. A qualifying family relationship may permit derivative asylum status. CAT has no equivalent mechanism.

Consequently, each applicant must demonstrate a particularized risk of future torture. The BIA described the relevant burden as establishing a “clear probability of future torture”—in practical terms, showing that torture is more likely than not, rather than merely possible.

The requirement is individualized eligibility, not necessarily separate testimony from every applicant. Evidence about harm to a parent or spouse may also support another family member’s claim. The question is whether that evidence establishes the particular applicant’s risk, not whether the applicant personally supplied it.

Here, Artur’s experiences and the threats against his family remained relevant. What consolidation could not accomplish was to convert his potential eligibility into automatic eligibility for his wife and children.

B. Consolidation does not merge substantive claims

The BIA’s procedural authority under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(4), together with its practice manual, permits it to sever appeals on its own initiative or at a party’s request. The court accordingly reviewed the severance decision for abuse of discretion.

The court supplied three reasons for finding no abuse:

1. No derivative CAT entitlement existed. The petitioners’ characterization of their claims as derivative depended on a feature of asylum law that does not apply to CAT.
2. Relevant family evidence remained available. The BIA expressly considered Artur’s confinement, physical harm, and fear that his family would be targeted. Severance did not prevent consideration of that testimony.
3. The remand objection addressed a different decision. The argument that Artur’s case required further development while theirs should not have been denied challenged the choice not to remand their claims. It did not establish that separating the proceedings was itself improper.

The last point is particularly important. A procedural challenge must identify an error in the challenged procedural act. An objection to one agency decision cannot substitute for a developed challenge to another.

C. Appellate briefing must connect law, facts, and alleged error

Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(a)(8)(A) requires an opening brief to state the party’s contentions and supporting reasons, with citations to relevant authorities and record materials. The court applied that requirement to the petitions for review.

The petitioners’ shifting descriptions of their issues were problematic, but the decisive deficiency was substantive: the brief did not explain why the BIA’s actual reasoning was legally incorrect. General statements about fairness, lists of review standards, and assertions that the agency erred did not supply that missing analysis.

The court also distinguished inadequate presentation from later abandonment. Some arguments were waived because they were never adequately developed. The contention that the existing record independently established CAT eligibility was abandoned through concessions in the reply brief and at oral argument.

D. The court did not decide the asserted constitutional right to remand

The petitioners claimed that the BIA violated due process by denying CAT protection without returning the cases to the IJ for their testimony. The court declined to reach that constitutional question because the opening brief did not explain why due process required remand in these circumstances.

The reply brief introduced a different theory: that the IJ had failed to notify the petitioners that individual testimony was necessary. That argument was both untimely and undermined by the record showing that counsel declined an opportunity to present additional witnesses.

The opinion therefore should not be read as categorically holding that due process can never require remand. It holds that these petitioners did not properly present such a claim for appellate decision.

E. Citation accuracy is part of adequate legal advocacy

The court identified a quotation attributed to Goldberg v. Kelly that did not appear in that opinion and two cited cases that it said did not exist. It suggested that these errors appeared to result from generative artificial intelligence, while leaving that explanation conditional.

The court criticized counsel’s failure to correct the errors after the government identified one of them. Its warning concerned professional responsibility for verified legal work, not a prohibition on using AI. The order does not impose sanctions.

5. Precedents Cited and Their Roles

A. Inadequate briefing and preservation of issues

Burke v. Pitts, 157 F.4th 1326 (10th Cir. 2025); Sawyers v. Norton, 962 F.3d 1270 (10th Cir. 2020); and United States v. Walker, 918 F.3d 1134 (10th Cir. 2019)

These authorities supplied the governing proposition that issues omitted from an opening brief are ordinarily abandoned or waived, and that the rule extends to inadequately presented arguments. Their significance was to prevent nominal inclusion of an issue from being treated as adequate preservation.

Herrera-Castillo v. Holder, 573 F.3d 1004 (10th Cir. 2009)

This was the closest procedural analogue because it applied appellate briefing requirements to review of a BIA decision. There, a substantial discussion of equal protection still failed to identify the specific challenged conduct or explain the constitutional violation. The court used that reasoning to show why the petitioners’ general due process discussion was insufficient despite its presence in the brief.

Burke v. Regalado, 935 F.3d 960 (10th Cir. 2019), and Bronson v. Swensen, 500 F.3d 1099 (10th Cir. 2007)

These cases establish that cursory statements without supporting analysis and case law do not preserve an issue. They directly supported rejection of the petitioners’ bare assertion that denying them a further opportunity to testify necessarily violated due process.

United States v. Clay, 148 F.4th 1181 (10th Cir. 2025), and United States v. Wooten, 377 F.3d 1134 (10th Cir. 2004)

These authorities reinforce the need for developed argumentation rather than perfunctory references. United States v. Clay also supported the conclusion that a reply brief cannot repair an inadequately argued opening brief. The court characterized the petitioners’ presentation as a textbook example of that deficiency.

United States v. Martinez, 92 F.4th 1213 (10th Cir. 2024), and Nixon v. City & County of Denver, 784 F.3d 1364 (10th Cir. 2015)

The court relied on the principle that an appellant’s first task is to explain why the challenged decision was wrong. Reciting standards of review did not accomplish that task. United States v. Martinez separately supported treating the new reply-stage challenge to the IJ’s alleged lack of notice as waived.

In re Syngenta AG MIR 162 Corn Litig., 61 F.4th 1126 (10th Cir. 2023), and United States v. Leffler, 942 F.3d 1192 (10th Cir. 2019)

These decisions explain the institutional rationale for briefing waiver: protecting courts from improvident or ill-advised rulings. The rationale was especially important because the petitioners sought a constitutional ruling without supplying the analysis necessary to define its basis or limits.

B. Abandonment after an opening brief

Maccagnan v. Cherry Creek School Dist. No. 5, 182 F.4th 1169 (10th Cir. 2026)

This case illustrated that a reply-brief concession can abandon a previously asserted argument. It supported treating the petitioners’ acknowledgment that they had not adequately discharged their individual CAT burdens as consequential.

United States v. Elmore, 101 F.4th 1210 (10th Cir. 2024)

This authority recognizes intentional abandonment at oral argument. It supported the effect given to counsel’s confirmation that the petitioners were not arguing that Artur’s testimony automatically satisfied each individual CAT burden.

United States v. Jumaev, 20 F.4th 518 (10th Cir. 2021), and United States v. Carel, 668 F.3d 1211 (10th Cir. 2011)

These cases supported the general practice of declining to decide abandoned arguments. They explain why the court did not assess whether the existing record substantively established the petitioners’ CAT eligibility.

C. Authorities the petitioners invoked without a sufficient connection

Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254 (1970)

The Supreme Court held that the welfare-benefit termination procedure at issue violated due process. The Tenth Circuit found the citation insufficiently connected to the claimed entitlement to an immigration remand. It also identified a quotation attributed to the case that did not appear in the opinion. The decision did not reject the general relevance of procedural fairness; it rejected the petitioners’ failure to develop the necessary analogy.

Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165 (1952)

This case concerned police conduct involving extraction of morphine capsules from a defendant’s stomach, which the Supreme Court found shocked the conscience. The petitioners did not explain how that holding established a right to further immigration proceedings. Its invocation therefore did not supply the missing due process analysis.

Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass'n of the U.S., Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29 (1983)

The petitioners cited its administrative-law requirement that agencies examine relevant information and explain their actions. The court treated the quotation as an example of an unhelpful general standard in the argument presented. Without explaining a specific defect in the BIA’s reasoning, the citation did not establish reversible error.

D. Individual CAT eligibility and family evidence

Rosas-Garcia v. Bondi, No. 24-9567, 2025 WL 2827216 (10th Cir. Oct. 6, 2025), and Tino v. Garland, 13 F.4th 708 (8th Cir. 2021)

These authorities supported the substantive proposition that CAT does not provide derivative relief. That proposition defeated the argument that severance improperly disrupted an entitlement dependent on Artur’s status. Rosas-Garcia v. Bondi was cited as unpublished persuasive authority; Tino v. Garland supplied supporting authority from the Eighth Circuit.

Lockwood Alvarez v. Garland, No. 20-9502, 2022 WL 3023692 (10th Cir. Aug. 1, 2022)

This unpublished decision supplied the requirement of a “particularized risk” of future torture. It explains why a common family narrative does not itself eliminate the need to connect the danger to each applicant.

Moundih v. Bondi, No. 24-9508, 2025 WL 1903790 (10th Cir. July 10, 2025)

This unpublished decision supported the relevance of Artur’s testimony to the other family members’ claims. Its role limits an overly broad reading of the opinion: individualized eligibility does not mean evidence about relatives must be excluded or ignored.

E. Fabricated citations and professional responsibility

Lichfield v. Kubler, 183 F.4th 1248 (10th Cir. 2026), and Amarsingh v. Frontier Airlines, Inc., No. 24-1391, 2026 WL 352016 (10th Cir. Feb. 9, 2026)

These authorities supported the warning that attorneys using AI must still exercise independent judgment and verify the resulting work. The court also relied on Lichfield v. Kubler in criticizing the failure to correct legal misstatements after notice. Unlike counsel in that case, petitioners’ counsel had not filed a notice of errata.

The purported cases Sameeh v. Gonzales and Naranjo Garcia v. Garland must be distinguished from the authorities above. The opinion expressly states that they do not exist. They supplied no precedent and were discussed only as citation defects.

6. Potential Impact and Limits

Family-based immigration litigation

The decision offers persuasive support for separate disposition of consolidated CAT claims when applicants have different evidentiary showings or procedural needs. A family relationship and overlapping evidence do not require identical outcomes.

For practitioners, the practical response is to develop applicant-specific links: who has been threatened, why the feared actors would target that person, and how the evidence establishes that person’s future risk. Separate testimony may help, but the opinion does not establish that every family member must testify.

Challenges to BIA procedure

The opinion encourages precision in distinguishing severance, evidentiary sufficiency, and remand. A successful challenge to one requires reasons directed to that decision. Merely contrasting a principal applicant’s remand with relatives’ denials does not establish abuse of discretion in severing their appeals.

Appellate advocacy

The decision underscores that serious humanitarian stakes do not displace appellate briefing requirements. Counsel must identify the challenged reasoning, state the governing law, and explain the connection between that law and the record. Reply briefs generally cannot supply a new theory that the opening brief omitted.

Limits on substantive reliance

The court did not adjudicate the merits of the due process claim, comprehensively review the sufficiency of the CAT evidence, or resolve Artur’s eligibility. Nor did it hold that threats against a family can never establish CAT protection for multiple applicants. Its substantive appellate holding was the narrower conclusion that the BIA did not abuse its discretion by severing these proceedings.

Its nonprecedential status further limits its effect: future courts may find the reasoning persuasive, but the order does not create generally binding circuit law.

7. Complex Concepts Simplified

Derivative protection

Status obtained through another person’s qualifying claim. Asylum permits certain derivative benefits; CAT does not.

Particularized risk

A danger connected to the individual applicant, rather than only to conditions in the country or another person’s experiences. Shared evidence can still establish that individualized danger.

State action or acquiescence

CAT requires the necessary connection between anticipated torture and public officials, including qualifying official consent or acquiescence. Private violence alone does not complete the inquiry.

Consolidation and severance

Consolidation handles cases together; severance separates them. Neither procedure automatically changes the substantive requirements governing each applicant.

Abuse-of-discretion review

A deferential form of review asking whether the agency exceeded the permissible bounds of its decision-making authority, not simply whether the court would have chosen differently.

Briefing waiver and abandonment

Briefing waiver prevents review of an omitted or insufficiently developed argument. Abandonment occurs when a party later gives up an argument it previously advanced.

Country-specific protection

The CAT grant at issue concerned Russia. It did not itself prohibit removal to Armenia, and the adverse rulings concerning Armenia were not challenged.

8. Conclusion

Chilingarian v. Blanche illustrates that shared family circumstances do not create derivative CAT eligibility and that consolidation does not prevent separate appellate dispositions. At the same time, family testimony remains potentially relevant to each applicant’s individual claim.

The outcome depended chiefly on appellate presentation: inadequate briefing and express concessions prevented review of most issues. The decision’s broader persuasive significance lies in combining individualized protection requirements with a firm insistence on focused, supported, and accurate legal advocacy—not in creating a new binding restriction on family CAT claims.