Analyzing the Ninth Circuit’s Landmark Parada Calderon v. Blanche Decision

On August 28, 2026, the Ninth Circuit published Parada Calderon v. Blanche, Nos. 24-7433, 25-2204. Most commentary will center on the "quantitative evidence" holding. The more operational takeaway runs the other way: the petitioner prevailed because there were three expert reports in the record for the Board to mishandle.

What happened. On a motion to reopen a CAT claim, the petitioner submitted three expert declarations. The Board did not discuss two of them at all. It disposed of the third with a single line — "anecdotes, no matter how disturbing, can't substitute for quantitative evidence, which is what CAT requires."

What the panel held. Two legal errors, either sufficient standing alone.

First, a quantitative-evidence requirement is irreconcilable with 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c)(3), which requires consideration of "all evidence relevant to the possibility of future torture." The panel observed that the problems with statistical evidence "are at their most acute in repressive regimes," that governments complicit in torture "have strong incentives to suppress and manipulate any available data," and that such a requirement "would eviscerate protections for the individuals who are most likely to be tortured." It also reaffirmed that an applicant may carry the burden "with evidence of country conditions alone." Uc Encarnacion v. Bondi, 156 F.4th 927, 941 (9th Cir. 2025).

Second, failure to give reasoned consideration to the expert reports. Cole v. Holder, 659 F.3d 762, 771–73 (9th Cir. 2011) (expert testimony is "highly probative [and] potentially dispositive evidence"); Castillo v. Barr, 980 F.3d 1278, 1283 (9th Cir. 2020) ("If the Board rejects expert testimony, it must state in the record why the testimony was insufficient to establish the probability of torture."). Backlog and the presumption of regularity are no answer: "Our precedent simply demands more."

Relief. Not a garden-variety remand. The panel remanded with instructions to (1) grant the motion to reopen and (2) hold a full merits hearing on the CAT application.

The practice point. The duty of reasoned consideration attaches to evidence that is in the record. Where there is no expert report, there is nothing for the IJ or the Board to ignore, nothing to dismiss in a conclusory sentence — and no Cole error to raise on a petition for review. An expert report is substantive proof and a preserved appellate issue in one instrument. Skipping it is not a cost saving; it is a foreclosed argument.

Four operational notes:

1. Individualized analysis beats a country survey. What moved the panel was risk analysis keyed to the client's specific profile — criminal history, gang associations, tattoos. As amici (dozens of former immigration judges and BIA members) framed it: the question is not "how often are detainees tortured?" but "what is the likelihood that someone with this client's background will be tortured if returned?" A general conditions overview is discounted in a sentence; an individualized opinion is not.
2. A report can reopen a closed case. All three declarations postdated the close of the administrative record and therefore qualified as material, previously unavailable evidence under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.23(b)(3) — no changed-country-conditions showing required on that pathway. A current expert report is often the cleanest vehicle for reopening.
3. Live testimony is separately valuable. Zolotukhin v. Gonzales, 417 F.3d 1073 (9th Cir. 2005) (IJ's refusal to permit telephonic testimony from a Russia religious-freedom expert violated due process notwithstanding the expert's written materials in the record; prejudice found on the cumulative effect of several violations). Make the request, and make the record when it is denied.
4. Read the decision in your own case for silence. An unaddressed or one-line-dismissed expert report is a preserved, reviewable error. Flag it before the appeal deadline runs.

Caveats. Binding in the Ninth Circuit; persuasive elsewhere — though the amicus record documents the demand for statistical proof as a nationwide trend, which is itself useful framing outside the circuit. Judge Bea dissented, reading the Board as having merely recited Benedicto v. Garland, 12 F.4th 1049, 1065 (9th Cir. 2021); the majority answered that Benedicto was quoted out of context and announced no quantitative-evidence rule. Expect opposing counsel to keep citing that line.

Why this matters in Russia cases. Russia is the paradigm the panel described. There is no verifiable data on torture in pre-trial detention or penal colonies, on the treatment of returnees, or on the application of the post-2022 criminal provisions — and what is published is produced by the state that is itself the alleged persecutor. The answer is not better statistics. It is a report that reasons from the client's own profile — political activity, military-related status, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, prior detention, family ties — to the risk that profile carries today.