The U.S. Supreme Court case Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Juan Anibal Aguirre-Aguirre (1998) revolved around the issue of whether a foreign national could be deported for political activities in his home country that would be considered illegal in the United States. The respondent, Juan Anibal Aguirre-Aguirre, was a Guatemalan citizen who had been involved in violent protests against his government and sought asylum in the U.S., fearing persecution if he returned to Guatemala. Initially, an immigration judge granted him withholding of deportation but this decision was reversed by Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), stating that he had committed serious nonpolitical crimes abroad which made him ineligible for relief from deportation under federal law. Aguirre-Aguirre appealed to Ninth Circuit court arguing BIA failed to consider all relevant factors including nature of conviction, circumstances & context etc while making its determination about seriousness of crime being non-political or not. However, on appeal by INS ,the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 favoring INS holding that courts should defer to BIA's interpretation unless it is arbitrary or capricious; also noted that there is no requirement for BIA to write an exegesis on every contention.

In the dissenting opinion for Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Juan Anibal Aguirre-Aguirre, Justice John Paul Stevens argued that the majority's decision was a misinterpretation of immigration law. He contended that the court should have deferred to the Board of Immigration Appeals' (BIA) interpretation of "serious nonpolitical crime" as it pertains to political asylum seekers. According to Stevens, this term is ambiguous in nature and thus requires expert judgment from an agency like BIA which has specialized experience in dealing with such matters. Furthermore, he criticized the majority's reliance on British case law instead of U.S precedent or international guidelines when interpreting this phrase. In his view, their approach undermined Congress’s intent behind providing protection for genuine refugees who may have committed acts against their oppressive governments out of necessity.