Evidence that members of a group conducted election-related violence and showed “tacit support for radical Islam” are not enough to establish that the group is a low-level terrorist organization whose members must be deported, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has ruled.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the court determined that, in order to establish that an organization is a Tier III terrorist group, whose members are barred from seeking relief in this country, there must be evidence that the group's leaders authorized the alleged terrorist activities.

The precedential decision aligns the Third Circuit with the Seventh Circuit in an area where there is little judicial guidance, according to Judge Marjorie Rendell, who wrote the court's opinion.