Individualized CAT Claims, Discretionary Severance, and Appellate Briefing Waiver

1. Introduction

Chilingarian v. Blanche concerns the relationship between shared family evidence and individual eligibility for protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). It also illustrates how inadequate appellate advocacy can prevent judicial consideration of substantive and constitutional challenges to removal decisions.

The petitioners—Siranush Chilingarian and her children, Siuzanna and Karen—were dual citizens of Armenia and Russia. Their claims arose principally from the experiences of their husband and father, Artur Chilingarian, who worked for the wealthy and politically connected Petrosian family. After Artur suffered violence and threats from his employer, the family fled Russia and entered the United States.

An immigration judge (“IJ”) granted all four family members CAT protection against removal to Russia. The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), however, concluded that the IJ had not adequately assessed each petitioner’s individual likelihood of torture. It severed the family’s cases, denied protection to the three petitioners, and remanded Artur’s case for further proceedings.

The Tenth Circuit denied the petitioners’ challenges. Most arguments were waived through inadequate briefing or expressly abandoned. The court resolved only the severance challenge on its merits, holding that the BIA did not abuse its discretion.

2. Background and Procedural History

Artur’s employment, assault, and threats against the family

Artur testified that he worked for the Petrosians for more than fifteen years in Armenia and Russia, including approximately twelve years in Kaluga, Russia. He alleged that the family prevented him from leaving his employment through threats of violence.

In October 2021, after Artur asked to return to Armenia to care for his sick mother, his employer and three other men kidnapped him and broke his arm. His employer warned 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 and entered the United States.

The immigration judge’s decision

Each family member separately applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection. Artur also identified his wife and children as derivative beneficiaries of his asylum application. Their proceedings were consolidated, with Artur designated the lead respondent.

The IJ found Artur credible and assessed the other family members’ claims through his experiences. In granting CAT protection against removal to Russia, the IJ relied on findings that:

• The Petrosians had controlled Artur’s employment and movement and had inflicted serious physical harm when he sought to leave.
• The family had connections to high-ranking Russian officials.
• The Chilingarians could not safely relocate within Russia without being located.
• Artur possessed extensive knowledge of the Petrosians’ businesses and official connections, supplying a motive to pursue him.
• Country-condition evidence indicated that Russian authorities would turn a blind eye to future torture.

The IJ denied protection against removal to Armenia. Those rulings were not appealed and were not before the Tenth Circuit. At the conclusion of the hearings, counsel declined the opportunity to present additional witnesses.

The BIA’s decision

DHS challenged the grants of CAT protection because the IJ had supplied no independent analysis of the petitioners’ eligibility. The BIA agreed. Although it accepted Artur’s credibility and acknowledged his fear that his family would be targeted, it found insufficient individualized findings supporting a clear probability of torture for each petitioner.

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

The petitioners sought judicial review and later filed a motion to reopen with the BIA. The opinion reports that filing but does not decide the motion or describe its outcome.

3. Summary of the Court’s Decision

Exercising jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a), the court denied all three petitions for review. Its treatment of the four discernible challenges was as follows:

The essential limitation: The court did not decide the merits of the due process challenge or independently determine whether the record established the petitioners’ eligibility for CAT protection. Its merits ruling concerned severance.

4. Precedents Cited and Their Influence

A. Inadequate appellate briefing

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 supply the basic preservation rule: issues omitted from the opening brief are ordinarily abandoned or waived, and the same consequence applies to arguments inadequately presented there. The court relied on Burke v. Pitts, which quoted the other two decisions, to explain why merely mentioning an issue does not preserve it.

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

This was the closest procedural analogy because it applied Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(a) to judicial review of a BIA decision. There, an equal-protection argument failed because the petitioner did not identify specific contentions, challenged conduct, or a concrete violation of rights. The Chilingarians’ due process presentation had comparable defects: general principles, tangential citations, and no developed connection between the BIA’s action and the asserted constitutional violation.

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

These decisions establish that cursory statements unsupported by analysis and relevant case law do not preserve an issue. They supported the court’s refusal to treat the petitioners’ conclusory assertion of a right to additional testimony as an adequately developed constitutional argument.

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

These cases reinforce that perfunctory references are insufficient and that a reply brief cannot repair deficient argumentation in the opening brief. The court described the failure to explain the alleged error and support it with authority as a “textbook example” of inadequate briefing.

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)

United States v. Martinez performed two roles. It supported rejecting a new notice-based due process theory raised only in reply, and, quoting Nixon v. City & County of Denver, it emphasized that an appellant’s first task is to explain why the challenged decision was wrong. Reciting review standards without identifying an error did not satisfy that obligation.

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 authorities explain the institutional purpose of briefing waiver: protecting courts against improvident or ill-advised decisions. Their significance was especially strong because the petitioners sought a constitutional ruling without sufficiently developed adversarial presentation.

B. Intentional abandonment

Maccagnan v. Cherry Creek School Dist. No. 5, 182 F.4th 1169 (10th Cir. 2026); United States v. Elmore, 101 F.4th 1210 (10th Cir. 2024); and United States v. Jumaev, 20 F.4th 518 (10th Cir. 2021)

These cases address arguments initially raised but subsequently relinquished. A concession in a reply brief or an intentional withdrawal at oral argument can remove an issue from appellate consideration. They explain why the court distinguished the petitioners’ abandoned CAT-entitlement argument from their inadequately briefed claims.

United States v. Carel, 668 F.3d 1211 (10th Cir. 2011)

The court invoked this decision when declining to address substantive CAT entitlement after counsel’s concessions. The result was procedural nonconsideration, not an appellate determination that the underlying evidence necessarily failed as a matter of law.

C. Authorities that did not establish the petitioners’ claimed errors

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

This decision concerned constitutionally inadequate procedures for terminating welfare benefits. The petitioners did not explain why its procedural protections required the BIA to remand these immigration cases. The court also found that a quotation attributed to Goldberg v. Kelly did not appear in that opinion.

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

This case addressed police conduct involving the forcible extraction of morphine capsules from a criminal defendant’s stomach. Its “shock the conscience” analysis did not, without further explanation, establish a right to remand for additional immigration testimony. The court treated the citation as tangential rather than as a developed constitutional analogy.

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

The petitioners quoted its requirement of reasoned agency decision-making. The Tenth Circuit identified that quotation as part of an unfocused recitation of standards rather than an explanation of a reviewable error. The opinion does not broadly reject reasoned-decision requirements in immigration adjudication; it rejects the petitioners’ failure to connect the cited principle to this decision.

D. Individual CAT eligibility and shared 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 decisions support the proposition that CAT protection is not derivative. Unlike asylum under 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(3)(A), CAT does not automatically extend protection to a spouse or child because another family member qualifies. This distinction directly undermined the petitioners’ argument that severance improperly disrupted derivative family claims.

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 supported treating the family members as separate applicants whose eligibility could differ despite a common factual background.

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 petitioners’ claims. It supplies an important qualification: individual eligibility does not require evidentiary isolation. The BIA could sever the cases while continuing to consider common testimony.

The unpublished Tenth Circuit decisions were used for persuasive value, not as binding precedent.

E. Citation integrity and possible AI-generated errors

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 decisions supported the court’s warning that attorneys using generative artificial intelligence remain responsible for checking legal authorities. The court was particularly concerned that counsel did not appropriately correct citation errors after the government identified one of them. The opinion suggests, but does not conclusively establish, that AI produced the errors.

Sameeh v. Gonzales and Naranjo Garcia v. Garland

The court identified these purported cases as nonexistent. They are therefore not substantive precedents supporting any proposition in the decision. Their relevance lies in the unreliability of the briefing and the court’s warning about fabricated citations. The opinion does not announce a separate sanctions disposition.

5. Legal Reasoning

A. A stated issue is not necessarily a preserved argument

Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(a)(8)(A) requires an opening brief to present contentions, reasons, and supporting citations to legal authorities and the record. The court applied that requirement substantively, not merely as a formatting rule.

The petitioners’ briefing shifted between alleging inadequate individualized analysis, insufficient explanation for reversal, and substantive entitlement to protection. More importantly, it did not explain how the BIA’s actual reasoning violated an applicable legal rule. The court was not required to reconstruct a coherent challenge from these shifting formulations.

The decision thus distinguishes the presence of a legal heading from the development of a legal argument. General constitutional language and lengthy quotations cannot replace identifying the challenged action, the governing rule, and the reason that rule was violated.

B. The due process ruling was procedural, not substantive

The petitioners argued that the BIA should have remanded so that they could testify individually. But their opening brief identified no pertinent authority requiring that remedy and did not adequately explain the constitutional defect.

Their reply introduced a different theory: the IJ had not notified them that individual testimony was necessary. That theory came too late and also encountered a factual obstacle—the IJ had offered an opportunity for additional testimony, which counsel declined.

The court nevertheless declined to decide the constitutional merits. The opinion should not be read as establishing that the BIA can always deny relief without remand whenever an IJ’s findings are inadequate.

C. CAT eligibility is individual even when the evidence is shared

Asylum and CAT protection operate differently. The INA expressly permits derivative asylum status for qualifying spouses and children. CAT contains no corresponding derivative entitlement. Each applicant must therefore establish an individual likelihood of qualifying torture.

That does not mean every applicant must necessarily testify separately. Nor does it make threats against the family or violence against a close relative irrelevant. The critical distinction is between shared evidence and automatic legal entitlement.

Artur’s testimony—including the threat against his family—could support the petitioners’ claims. But its relevance did not itself establish that each family member satisfied the CAT standard. Because the substantive entitlement argument was abandoned, the Tenth Circuit did not resolve how much weight that evidence should receive in a complete merits analysis.

D. Severance was within the BIA’s discretion

The court identified the BIA’s procedural authority under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(4) and its practice manual, which permits severance either on request or at the Board’s own discretion. It therefore reviewed the decision for abuse of discretion.

Three considerations supported the BIA:

1. No derivative CAT right required unified treatment. The petitioners’ family relationship did not make their legal claims inseparable from Artur’s.
2. Severance did not exclude common evidence. The BIA expressly considered Artur’s mistreatment and his fear that the petitioners would be targeted.
3. Different dispositions did not establish improper severance. The argument that Artur received a remand while the petitioners did not challenged the remand decision, not the procedural act of separating the cases.

The last point is particularly important. Severance determines whether claims proceed together; remand determines whether further proceedings are necessary. An objection to one does not automatically demonstrate error in the other.

E. Country-specific relief remained a separate limitation

The disputed CAT grants concerned Russia. The denials of protection against removal to Armenia were unchallenged. The decision therefore did not reopen the petitioners’ eligibility for protection from Armenia, and a successful challenge concerning Russia would not itself establish a right to remain free from removal to every other country.

6. Potential Impact

Family-based immigration litigation

The opinion offers persuasive support for separating CAT claims when family members’ eligibility or procedural needs differ. Initial consolidation does not transform individual applications into one collective claim or guarantee identical outcomes.

At the same time, it supports continued use of shared evidence after severance. A family member’s testimony may remain relevant to another applicant’s risk. The practical task is to explain the connection between that evidence and each applicant’s particular circumstances.

Appellate advocacy

The decision underscores the importance of addressing the BIA’s actual reasoning in the opening brief. A challenge to severance, a demand for remand, an attack on factual review, and a constitutional claim require distinct explanations. Preserving one does not necessarily preserve the others.

It also illustrates the consequences of later concessions. The petitioners’ acknowledgment that they had not adequately discharged their burden, followed by counsel’s oral clarification, removed substantive CAT entitlement from appellate consideration.

Professional responsibility

The citation discussion reinforces a technology-neutral duty: counsel must verify authorities and quotations before filing and correct errors when discovered. The court’s conditional reference to AI should not be mistaken for a definitive factual finding about how the errors arose.

Limits on future reliance

Because the order is nonprecedential and most issues were not adjudicated on their merits, its persuasive reach is narrower than its subject matter might suggest. It does not establish a categorical rule requiring separate testimony, authorizing denial instead of remand in every comparable case, or treating family-directed threats as insufficient evidence.

7. Complex Concepts Simplified

CAT protection

Protection against removal to a country where an applicant establishes that torture is more likely than not, with the required involvement, consent, or acquiescence of public officials. It is not the same as asylum.

Derivative protection

A benefit obtained through a qualifying family member rather than by independently proving every eligibility requirement. Certain relatives may receive derivative asylum; CAT provides no equivalent automatic family benefit.

Particularized risk

A demonstrated danger to the individual applicant, rather than reliance solely on another person’s danger or generally poor country conditions. Evidence concerning relatives can still help establish that individual danger.

Severance

Separating previously joined proceedings so that the claims can receive different procedural treatment or decisions.

Remand

Sending a case back to the lower decision-maker for further proceedings, findings, or reconsideration.

Abuse of discretion

A standard that gives the decision-maker room to choose among permissible options. Showing that another approach was possible is not enough to establish error.

Appellate waiver through inadequate briefing

The court’s refusal to decide an argument because the opening brief did not develop it adequately.

Abandonment

Giving up an argument that was initially raised, including through a later concession or express withdrawal.

Nonprecedential order

A disposition that generally does not bind future panels, although it can be persuasive. The opinion preserves specified binding effects within the same litigation or through doctrines preventing relitigation.

8. Conclusion

Chilingarian v. Blanche applies, rather than creates, three central principles: CAT eligibility is individual; the BIA may sever family members’ proceedings within its discretion; and appellate courts ordinarily will not decide inadequately developed or abandoned arguments.

Its most important qualification is that individualized eligibility does not require isolated evidence. Common testimony may support several family members, but each applicant needs an adequately explained basis for protection. Equally, challenging an adverse decision requires a developed argument addressing the decision actually made. Here, those procedural failures largely foreclosed review, leaving the BIA’s orders in place without a full appellate determination of the petitioners’ substantive CAT claims.