Cite as: 526 U. S. 415 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
met. 8 U. S. C. §§ 1253(h)(1), (2). In addition, we have recognized that judicial deference to the Executive Branch is especially appropriate in the immigration context where officials "exercise especially sensitive political functions that implicate questions of foreign relations." INS v. Abudu, 485 U. S. 94, 110 (1988). A decision by the Attorney General to deem certain violent offenses committed in another country as political in nature, and to allow the perpetrators to remain in the United States, may affect our relations with that country or its neighbors. The judiciary is not well positioned to shoulder primary responsibility for assessing the likelihood and importance of such diplomatic repercussions.
The Attorney General, while retaining ultimate authority, has vested the BIA with power to exercise the "discretion and authority conferred upon the Attorney General by law" in the course of "considering and determining cases before it." 8 CFR § 3.1(d)(1) (1998). Based on this allocation of authority, we recognized in Cardoza-Fonseca, supra, that the BIA should be accorded Chevron deference as it gives ambiguous statutory terms "concrete meaning through a process of case-by-case adjudication" (though we ultimately concluded that the agency's interpretation in that case was not sustainable). 480 U. S., at 448-449. In the case before us, by failing to follow Chevron principles in its review of the BIA, the Court of Appeals erred.
A
The Court of Appeals' error is clearest with respect to its holding that the BIA was required to balance respond-ent's criminal acts against the risk of persecution he would face if returned to Guatemala. In Matter of Rodriguez-Coto, 19 I. & N. Dec. 208, 209-210 (1985), the BIA "reject[ed] any interpretation of the phras[e] . . . 'serious nonpolitical crime' in [§ 1253(h)(2)(C)] which would vary with the nature of evidence of persecution." The text and structure of § 1253(h) are consistent with this conclusion. Indeed, its
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