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Immigration – Asylum

By: Derek Hawkins//August 9, 2016//

Immigration – Asylum

By: Derek Hawkins//August 9, 2016//

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7th Circuit court of Appeals

Case Name: Ana Veronica Jimenez Ferreira v. Loretta E. Lynch

Case No.: 15-2603

Officials: BAUER, MANION, and KANNE, Circuit Judges

Focus: Immigration – Asylum

ALJ ignored documentary evidence corroborating testimony of Appellant.

“We agree with Jimenez that the Board erred by rejecting her challenge to the adverse credibility determination without analysis and that this error warrants remand. In Moab, we concluded that the agency’s credibility determination was not supported by substantial evidence because the record of the preliminary interview was “not a verbatim transcript,” it was “unclear what, if any, follow‐up questions were posed,” and it was reasonable that the applicant “would not have wanted to mention his sexual orientation [during the interview] for fear that revealing this information could cause further persecution as it had in his home country.” 500 F.3d at 661. The indicators that the notes of Jimenez’s credible‐fear interview are unreliable are almost identical to the signs of unreliability that were the basis for remand in Moab. Yet the Board made no mention of Moab or the criteria of reliability it set forth, in‐ stead concluding summarily that “there are no indications that the notes from [the credible‐fear interview] are unreliable.” This mistaken legal conclusion, combined with the Board’s lack of any explanation about how it was reached, necessitates remand: “Remand is proper for additional analysis if the BIA ‘has not adequately explained its result and it seems possible to us that the agency might be compelled to reach the opposite conclusion depending how it evaluates the record after remand.’” Kone v. Holder, 620 F.3d 760, 764 (7th Cir. 2010) (quoting Gomes v. Gonzales, 473 F.3d 746, 752 (7th Cir. 2007)); see Gonzales v. Thomas, 547 U.S. 183, 186–87 (2006).”

Petition for Review Granted and remanded

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.

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