16
Per Curiam
The Government challenges the decision not to remand. And it says the matter is important. The "error," it says, is a "recurring error [that] puts the Ninth Circuit in conflict with other courts of appeals, which generally respect the BIA's role as fact-finder by remanding to the BIA in similar situations." Pet. for Cert. 11. See also Pet. for Cert. in INS v. Chen, O. T. 2002, No. 25, p. 23 (referring to eight other recent decisions from the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which, in the Government's view, demonstrate this trend). After examining the record, we find that well-established principles of administrative law did require the Court of Appeals to remand the "changed circumstances" question to the BIA.
II
No one disputes the basic legal principles that govern remand. Within broad limits the law entrusts the agency to make the basic asylum eligibility decision here in question. E. g., 8 U. S. C. § 1158(a); 8 U. S. C. § 1253(h)(1) (1994 ed.); Elias-Zacarias, supra, at 481; INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U. S. 415 (1999). See also 8 CFR § 3.1 (2002). In such circumstances a "judicial judgment cannot be made to do service for an administrative judgment." SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U. S. 80, 88 (1943). Nor can an "appellate court . . . intrude upon the domain which Congress has exclusively entrusted to an administrative agency." Ibid. A court of appeals "is not generally empowered to conduct a de novo inquiry into the matter being reviewed and to reach its own conclusions based on such an inquiry." Florida Power & Light Co. v. Lorion, 470 U. S. 729, 744 (1985). Rather, "the proper course, except in rare circumstances, is to remand to the agency for additional investigation or explanation." Ibid. Cf. SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U. S. 194, 196 (1947) (describing the reasons for remand).
Generally speaking, a court of appeals should remand a case to an agency for decision of a matter that statutes place primarily in agency hands. This principle has obvious im-
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