Regarding the plight of foreigners claiming torture in their home countries, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated it is neither the responsibility of the petitioner nor of the government to determine if it is indeed safe for them to return to another part of their country rather than where their torture occurred.

An expanded panel of judges in San Francisco ruled for Roberto Curinsita Maldonado, who had appealed a finding by the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals that he did not qualify for a reprieve from deportation under the U.N. Convention Against Torture because he had failed to prove he would be unsafe in any part of Mexico.

A U.S. asylum officer found Maldonado's allegations of being tortured at the hands of police in the central Mexican state of Michoacan were credible.

The judges brought Maldonado's case back to the Board of Immigration Appeals, an administrative panel in the U.S. Justice Department.

Kathryn Mattingly, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review, announced her agency had no comment on Friday's decision.

According to The Associated Press report, University of San Francisco School of Law professor Bill Hing stated this decision is potentially significant for Mexicans escaping the drug-fueled violence and police corruption of their country and for Central Americans who are likewise fleeing strife.

He stressed that expecting the people who are fleeing from torture to demonstrate they would be unsafe in any part of their home country is too high of a bar to reach, asking how someone could possibly accomplish this challenge -- as there would be no way immigrants would have lived in every part of the country they were fleeing.

Texas attorney Dan Kowalski stated the recent decision "represents a small, technical, but important step forward in the protection of (Convention Against Torture) applicants from any country, but especially from Mexico."