v0.1.0 to v0.1.1

---

name: immigration-case-law

description: >

---

# Immigration Case-Law Research (bundled MCP servers)

> **NOT LEGAL ADVICE.** This skill retrieves and organizes legal sources as a research and

> drafting aid; it does not evaluate whether an authority is good law on the user's facts and

> does not create an attorney-client relationship. Immigration consequences are severe and

> often irreversible — pair research with review by a licensed immigration attorney or

> EOIR-accredited representative.

## Purpose

This plugin snapshots the **rules** (INA, 8 CFR, 22 CFR, FAM) verbatim, but **case law is

on-demand** — [`../../references/legal-data-apis.md`](../../references/legal-data-apis.md)

indexes the sources, and the plugin bundles two free remote MCP servers (declared in

[`../../.mcp.json`](../../.mcp.json)) to serve that layer. **Never cite a case from memory**

— every cited authority must be retrieved and read before it enters a draft.

## Forum-aware routing

| Authority | Where to get it |

|---|---|

| **Circuit courts** (petitions for review under INA § 242 / 8 U.S.C. § 1252) and the **Supreme Court** | CourtListener MCP — court IDs `ca1`–`ca11`, `cadc`, `scotus`. The Ninth Circuit (`ca9`) carries the largest immigration docket; **circuit law is not uniform**, so always scope the search to the circuit where the petition lies (or the IJ sits) |

| **BIA precedent** (*Matter of …*, cited "I&N Dec.") | CourtListener indexes many BIA decisions (court ID `bia`); the **EOIR Virtual Law Library is the publisher of record** — confirm the precedent there, and check it has not been **certified to or overruled by the Attorney General** |

| **AAO** (USCIS appeals, non-precedent + adopted decisions) | Not on CourtListener — the USCIS decision reading room per `legal-data-apis.md` |

| **District courts** (habeas, APA / mandamus delay suits) and their **dockets** | CourtListener MCP — opinions + the RECAP/PACER docket collection (find the complaint, the government's response, the order) |

| **Country-of-origin law** — penal codes, statutes criminalizing the protected ground, family/nationality law, foreign case law | Legal Data Hunter MCP — multi-jurisdictional coverage of 100+ countries; often decisive for asylum (e.g., whether the applicant's conduct or identity is criminalized at home), and for nationality / statelessness questions |

## CourtListener playbook (immigration-flavored)

- **Search both section numbers.** Opinions cite the same provision as `INA § 240` or

`8 U.S.C. § 1229a` inconsistently — search both forms (crosswalk in

[`../../references/immigration-statutes/README.md`](../../references/immigration-statutes/README.md));

never compute the offset.

- **Scope by court and date.** Pre-BIA-deference-era and pre-amendment cases mislead;

filter by date when a provision was amended (e.g., post-REAL ID Act credibility law).

- **Read before citing** — use the document-reading tools to pull the opinion text and

quote-check the holding; restrict response fields to what you need.

- **Citation verification** — run a draft's citations through the citation-lookup tools in

bulk; the citation network (who cites this case) is a first-pass treatment check, **not**

Shepard's/KeyCite. For load-bearing authority, recommend a citator check before filing.

- **Link** every retrieved case with its `courtlistener.com` URL next to the reporter cite.

## Legal Data Hunter playbook (country-of-origin law)

- Discover the country's available sources and filters first, then run scoped hybrid

search; retrieve full text before quoting and cite inline with the document link.

- Pair foreign-law findings with the U.S. legal element they support (e.g., a penal-code

section criminalizing the protected ground → the persecution / "particular social group"

analysis; a nationality statute → derivative-citizenship or statelessness analysis).

- Foreign law in an asylum filing is **evidence**, not binding authority — present it as a

documented country-conditions exhibit, translated where required, alongside (not instead

of) State Department and NGO country reports.

## Output discipline

- Inline citation to a retrieved document for every legal claim; holding vs. dicta

distinguished; operative language quoted, not paraphrased.

- Confidence flags: **GREEN** (retrieved, read, supports), **YELLOW** (partial/arguable

support), **RED** (could not retrieve — do not cite). Hand the finished draft to

`immigration-fact-check` for the four-pass audit before filing.

- Repeat the NOT LEGAL ADVICE disclaimer in any deliverable this research feeds.

## If the tools are missing

Both servers need a one-time sign-in (CourtListener: free account, OAuth; Legal Data

Hunter: GitHub/Google). If their tools are absent, tell the user to run `/mcp` and

authenticate — do not fall back to memory. Hard fallbacks: the REST sources indexed in

[`../../references/legal-data-apis.md`](../../references/legal-data-apis.md) and

[`../../references/online-sources.md`](../../references/online-sources.md).

## Composition

Finds and verifies authority for `circuit-petition-for-review` (circuit scoping +

exhaustion arguments), `bia-appeals` (BIA precedent + circuit law), `eoir-removal-defense`

(relief-eligibility case law + country-of-origin evidence), and

`eoir-motions-to-reopen-reconsider` (changed-country-conditions evidence). Runs before

`immigration-fact-check`, which audits the finished draft. The matter-neutral counterpart

for non-immigration research is `case-law-research` in `claude-legal-federal-laws`.