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Keywords

testimonyburden of proofasylumvisadeportationcredibility

hearingtrialtestimonywillasylumvisadeportationnaturalizationcredibility

Related Cases

Georgis v. Ashcroft

Facts

Georgis, a native and citizen of Ethiopia, entered the United States in June 1995 on a non-immigrant visitor's visa. After being charged with overstaying her visa, she requested asylum and withholding of deportation, claiming persecution based on her political beliefs and ethnicity. The Immigration Judge denied her application, citing inconsistencies in her testimony and lack of corroborating evidence, which Georgis contested.

Georgis, a native and citizen of Ethiopia, entered the United States in June 1995 on a non-immigrant visitor's visa. In July 1997 the Immigration and Naturalization Service ('INS') issued Georgis a Notice to Appear, charging her under 237(a)(1)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act ('INA'), 8 U.S.C. 1227 [**2] (a)(1)(B), with overstaying her visa. Georgis conceded removability as charged but requested asylum under INA 208, 8 U.S.C. 1158, and withholding of deportation under INA 241(b)(3), 8 U.S.C. 1231(b)(3), as relief from removal. In her application Georgis claimed that since 1996 the Ethiopian government had been arresting and persecuting members of the Amharic ethnic and political group, including Georgis's husband, Afework Mulat ('Afework'), and three of her children. Georgis further alleged that government soldiers had interrogated her family and inquired as to her whereabouts, and that Afework and one son remained in jail because they belong to the All-Amhara People's Organization ('AAPO'), a political group opposing the Ethiopian government. Georgis herself had been a member of the AAPO when she was in Ethiopia and currently belonged to an AAPO support group in Chicago, Illinois. Georgis expressed her belief that she would be arrested and jailed for her AAPO membership if she were forced to return to Ethiopia.

Issue

Did the Immigration Judge err in denying Georgis's application for asylum and withholding of deportation based on credibility determinations that were not supported by substantial evidence?

Rule

The testimony of an asylum applicant, if credible, may be sufficient to sustain the burden of proof without corroboration. The court reviews decisions of immigration courts for substantial evidence.

We review decisions of the immigration courts to deny petitions for asylum and withholding of deportation for substantial evidence. Ambati v. Reno, 233 F.3d 1054 at 1059(7th Cir. 2000). We must affirm the BIA's decision if it is supported by 'reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole,' Useinovic v. INS, 313 F.3d 1025 at 1029(7th Cir. 2002), and we are not at liberty to overturn the agency's determination 'simply because [we] would have decided the case differently,' Yadegar-Sargis v. INS, 297 F.3d 596 at 601(7th Cir. 2002). Only where the evidence in support of the application is 'so compelling that no reasonable fact-finder could fail to find the requisite fear of persecution' will we reverse the Board's decision for lack of evidence.

Analysis

The court found that the Immigration Judge's reasons for discrediting Georgis's testimony were either unsupported by the evidence or based on incomplete or improperly excluded evidence. Specifically, the court noted that many of the inconsistencies cited were minor and easily explained, and that Georgis had submitted corroborating evidence that was improperly excluded by the IJ.

In this case the IJ denied Georgis's request for asylum and withholding of deportation because he found her claims incredible due to 'numerous discrepancies' in her asylum application and her hearing testimony. The IJ gave six reasons for his conclusion that Georgis's claims were neither 'internally consistent' nor 'inherently persuasive,' quoted several passages from the State Department's generalized profile of asylum applications and country conditions in Ethiopia for 1997, and summarily denied Georgis's request for asylum or withholding of deportation. Of the six reasons given by the IJ, three specifically relate to discrepancies in dates that Georgis explained at the hearing were due to her unfamiliarity with our calendar versus the Ethiopian calendar; one involves the specificity and extent of Georgis's knowledge of her son's whereabouts; one concerns the lack of corroborating or supporting evidence relating to Georgis's AAPO membership, her and her family's political activities and arrests and persecution by the Ethiopian government, and her husband's arrest and prolonged imprisonment; and one addresses Georgis's failure to discuss the events relating to her 1993 arrest at the trial of Professor Woldeyes in her asylum application.

Conclusion

The court vacated the deportation order and remanded the case for further proceedings, urging the BIA to assign a different judge on remand.

We therefore VACATE the deportation order and REMAND for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion. Although the choice of a presiding judge is left to the discretion of the BIA, we strongly urge the BIA to assign a different judge to Georgis's case on remand.

Who won?

Georgis prevailed in the case because the court found that the Immigration Judge's credibility determinations were not supported by substantial evidence.

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