Tenth Circuit denies immigration petitions largely for inadequate briefing and flags two nonexistent cases and a misquoted Goldberg v. Kelly

What happened

• Three family members, dual citizens of Armenia and Russia, petitioned for review after the BIA vacated an immigration judge's grant of protection under the Convention Against Torture and denied them that protection.
• The court could discern two arguments in the opening brief (a due process claim and a challenge to the BIA's severance of their cases from the father's). It said the remaining issues "change in confounding ways" across the brief's sections.
• On the due process argument, the court noted that the brief's only two case citations, Goldberg v. Kelly and Rochin v. California, were not on point.
• It also found a quote the brief attributed to Goldberg ("the most elementary notions of due process") that does not appear in that opinion, and two cases that do not exist: "Sameeh v. Gonzales, 453 F.3d 1150, 1155 (10th Cir. 2006)" and "Naranjo Garcia v. Garland, 990 F.3d 1177, 1189 (9th Cir. 2021)."
• The government had pointed out one of the citation errors in its response brief. The reply brief, the court said, "did not appropriately remedy the misstatements of law."
• The court held the due process claim, a BIA legal-error claim and a CAT claim waived or abandoned, and held the BIA did not abuse its discretion in severing the cases.

What the court said

The AI discussion is footnote 6, on pp. 11-12. The court wrote: "These errors appear to be the product of generative artificial intelligence ('AI')." It then quoted its own recent decision in Lichfield v. Kubler: "[a]ttorneys who choose to use [AI] must be willing to also apply 'actual intelligence in its execution.'"

It added that counsel had not filed a notice of errata, as counsel did in Lichfield, and quoted that case: "Submission of a brief containing fabricated or hallucinated citations is a divergence from the standards expected of attorneys appearing before this court."

The main holding is about briefing, not AI. The court called the due process section a "textbook example" of inadequate briefing (p. 12) and said it would not consider issues "adverted to in a perfunctory manner." The court did not impose a sanction or refer counsel anywhere in this order.

What it means for your firm

• Courts are folding AI citation errors into ordinary waiver analysis. Here the fake cases sat inside a brief the court already found inadequate, and the cost to the clients was an unreviewed claim.
• A misquoted real case counts. The court found the Goldberg quote as unreliable as the nonexistent cases, and both were in one brief.
• The court weighed what happened after the error was spotted. The government flagged a citation, the reply did not fix it, and no notice of errata followed. The court said it was "further concerned."
• Our reading: in immigration and other petition practice, where the opening brief limits what a court will decide, a verification failure can end in lost claims as well as in credibility damage.
• Our reading: a short errata filing as soon as a citation problem is raised is cheap and is the step this court said was missing.

What to do Monday

1. Pull and read every case in a draft brief, including the ones cited for background principles, and confirm each quotation against the opinion itself.
2. Give response-brief citation complaints from the other side to a lawyer within one working day, and decide whether a notice of errata or corrected filing is due.
3. Keep a short log of who verified each authority and when, so you can show the court what was checked if a citation is challenged.
4. Before filing in the Tenth Circuit, read its recent decisions on AI citations, including Lichfield v. Kubler and Amarsingh v. Frontier Airlines, which this order cites.

Sources

• Court record (10th Cir. Nos. 25-9591, 25-9592, 25-9593, Order and Judgment, Oct 20, 2026)
• AI Vortex Legal AI Risk record for this matter (Structured record in the public case database)

Operational information, not legal advice. Facts come from the court record linked under Sources, read on Oct 27, 2026. The reading of what it means for your firm is ours. A source link does not replace the full docket or later history.