A Chinese national who was beaten to the point of disability and whose wife was forced to have an abortion by authorities in his homeland should not have been denied asylum by an immigration court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has ruled.

In the court’s Oct. 12 opinion, Third Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas criticized the Board of Immigration Appeals’ analysis of Cha Liang’s persecution in China by not looking at it in its totally when deciding whether he should remain in this country.