Supreme Court Rules Asylum Applicants Bear Burden of Proof, Reversing 9th Circuit Unanimously ruling against a Chinese asylum claimant, the Supreme Court reversed the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this morning, finding immigration judges do not have to explicitly state that an asylum seeker’s story is not credible when finding against him. The court’s opinion in the case, Garland v. Dai, court file 19-1155, was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch. “The Ninth Circuit has long applied a special rule in immigration disputes,” Gorsuch wrote. “The rule provides that, in the absence of an explicit adverse credibility determination by an immigration judge or the Board of Immigration Appeals, a reviewing court must treat a petitioning alien’s testimony as credible and true.”