In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________

No. 04-4201

VIOLETA SHTARO,

Petitioner,

v.

ALBERTO R. GONZALES,

Respondent.

____________

On Petition for Review of an Order of

the Board of Immigration Appeals.

No. A 95 403 012

____________

ARGUED AUGUST 3, 2005—DECIDED JANUARY 24, 2006

____________

Before KANNE, WOOD, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

KANNE, Circuit Judge. Albanian citizen Violeta Shtaro

seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”)

removal order summarily affirming the Immigration

Judge’s (“IJ”) decision to deny her eligibility for asylum on

the ground that her testimony was not credible. We conclude that the IJ’s decision is not supported by substantial

evidence and therefore grant Shtaro’s petition.

I.

Shtaro entered the United States in March 2001 under a

Slovenian passport in someone else’s name. A year later she

petitioned for asylum, withholding of removal, and protec-
2 No. 04-4201

tion under the Convention Against Torture, claiming that

she was persecuted on account of her political opinion. The

INS denied her petition, and she was issued a Notice to

Appear charging her with removability for entering the

country without valid documentation. See

INA § 237(a)(1)(A), 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(A).

At her hearing before the IJ, Shtaro testified that she had

participated in local politics in the city of Vlora for a

number of years. She became an “active supporter” of the

Democratic Party in 1992 while still a student, and joined

the Party officially in 1995. In February 2000, she was

chosen by the Party’s leadership to serve as secretary to the

Party Chairman. In that position her duties included

handling correspondence for the Chairman, helping to

prepare his speeches, and reading party platforms aloud for

television and radio broadcasts.

Shtaro testified that her troubles began in May 2000,

when she was approached by two members of the civil

police. They told her that she was going to be a polling

commissioner for the October local elections and offered her

a bribe of $5,000 to certify the results in favor of the

Socialist Party. Shtaro refused the offer and reported the

incident to the Democratic Party Chairman, but she

continued to receive anonymous letters threatening her

with “hard days” if she did not change her mind.

Later that month, shortly before a Democratic Party rally

that she helped to organize, Shtaro received an anonymous

letter warning her to “disappear from the city” if she

“want[ed] to live.” On the evening of the rally itself, her

home was burglarized; among the items stolen were cash,

jewelry, and a number of “personal documents,” including

wedding photographs. Shtaro and her husband did not

report the burglary because they believed the police were

involved and feared reprisal. Their decision to “stay quiet”

was reinforced on the following day when she heard that
No. 04-4201 3

the Socialists had killed a “friend” of hers, a journalist “with

democratic belie[f]s.”

Shtaro testified that she continued to work for the

Democratic Party, and was in fact selected as one of the

polling commissioners for the October elections. During the

voting, she noticed a number of “irregularities,” which she

reported to the Democratic Party Chairman. She refused to

certify the tainted election results, even though a police

officer monitoring the polling place warned her that the

refusal would endanger her life.

When the news broke that the Socialist Party had

prevailed in the election, “supporters of the Democratic

Party” took to the streets in protest, but they were admonished by Party leadership to do so peacefully. Ten days

later, according to Shtaro, she received another letter

warning her to leave the city; the arrival of this letter

coincided with the explosion of a bomb in front of her

husband’s grocery store. Shtaro then went to stay with an

uncle in a small village to distance herself from the political

furor in Vlora. She returned to Vlora at Christmastime,

hoping that “the story would have been forgotten.”

Apparently, it was not. Shtaro testified that she returned

to work as secretary for the Democratic Party Chairman in

January 2001. On March 2, 2001, on her way home from

work, she was abducted by three armed men, who showed

her police IDs and took her to the police station where they

verbally abused and beat her. At that time, Shtaro was

several months pregnant. A few hours later, the police told

her they would bring her home, but Shtaro claimed that

they took her instead into the Soda Forest (where her

journalist-friend had been killed) and took turns raping her.

When they finally did take her home, they warned her not

to talk with any journalists or she would “really see what it

means to suffer.”

Shtaro claimed that she knew she was being punished for

her refusal to certify the election returns because during
4 No. 04-4201

her detention the police made comments such as, “do you

see, you bitch, because you didn’t sign, that’s what is

happening,” and “[y]ou bitch would rather be

massacred than sign a piece of paper!” She also reported

that during the drive to the Soda Forest, one of the men

opened a folder and showed her the wedding pictures

that had been stolen from her home the previous May. He

told her that he would keep the pictures “to look at . . .

every time I miss you.”

In support of her testimony, Shtaro submitted a number of documents, including letters from both the former

and the current Chairman of the Democratic Party, confirming her employment with the Party; copies of her employment contracts; two affidavits from the doctor who treated

her after she was beaten and raped; and a police report

purporting to certify that she had been “arrested” on March

2, 2001, for “participation in the meetings organized by the

Democratic Party.”

The IJ rejected Shtaro’s testimony “standing alone” as a

basis for asylum, because he did not believe that she

would have been detained, beaten, and raped almost five

months after refusing to help fix an election that the

Socialist Party won anyway. He also rejected her attempts to corroborate her claims, finding her story “inconsistent” with a State Department country profile and her own

documentary evidence. The IJ added that her supporting

documents were so inconsistent and unreliable that they

not only failed to corroborate but “actually impeached” her

narrative account. Thus, though he credited her claim that

she had been secretary to the previous Democratic Party

Chairman, he found that Shtaro “failed to establish anything more than that.” The BIA affirmed the IJ’s decision

without opinion.
No. 04-4201 5

II.

Because the BIA summarily affirmed the IJ’s decision, we

review that decision as if it were the BIA’s. Dong v. Gonzales, 421 F.3d 573, 577 (7th Cir. 2005); Li v. Gonzales, 416

F.3d 681, 684 (7th Cir. 2005). Our review is for substantial

evidence. Chen v. Gonzales, 420 F.3d 707, 709 (7th Cir.

2005); Li, 416 F.3d at 684. We must uphold the IJ’s decision

unless the evidence compels us to a conclusion contrary to

the BIA’s, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B); Li, 416 F.3d at 684;

Diallo v. Ashcroft, 381 F.3d 687, 698 (7th Cir. 2004).

In matters of credibility, we owe “great deference” to the

IJ’s judgment and will uphold an adverse credibility

determination as long as it is supported by “specific, cogent

reasons” with a “legitimate nexus to the finding.” Dong, 421

F.3d at 577 (internal citation and quotation omitted); see

also Hysi v. Gonzales, 411 F.3d 847, 852 (7th Cir. 2005).

However, we will not defer to findings not supported by

evidence in the record. Dong, 421 F.3d at 577-78; Korniejew

v. Ashcroft, 371 F.3d 377, 383 (7th Cir. 2004); Uwase v.

Ashcroft, 349 F.3d 1039, 1043 (7th Cir. 2003).

On appeal Shtaro’s principal argument is that the IJ’s

credibility determination is not supported by substantial

evidence because his reasoning is speculative, illogical, or

otherwise not cogent. We address her challenges to each

of the IJ’s four grounds for decision.

A. Implausible Testimony

Shtaro first contends generally that the IJ erred in

finding her testimony implausible because his skepticism

has no basis in the record. We agree. An IJ may not base an

adverse credibility determination on conjecture or speculation, see Hor v. Gonzales, 421 F.3d 497, 500 (7th Cir. 2005);

Chen, 420 F.3d at 710; Uwase, 349 F.3d at 1042; or on

“ ‘personal beliefs or some perceived common knowledge,’ ”
6 No. 04-4201

Dong, 421 F.3d at 577 (quoting Huang v. Gonzales, 403 F.3d

945, 949 (7th Cir. 2005)). The IJ gave four different reasons

for rejecting Shtaro’s testimony. He “[did] not believe” (1)

that she would be targeted for a bribe before her official

appointment to the election commission; (2) that her

position as election commissioner (or party secretary) was

important enough for her to be “singled out” for persecution;

(3) that the Socialists would be interested in persecuting

her in any case since her refusal to cooperate did not cause

them to lose the election; and (4) that they would bear a

grudge for five months after the elections. But the IJ points

to no evidence to support these assumptions about the

motivations of Shtaro’s alleged persecutors, and her story is

not so inherently improbable that we can uphold the

IJ’s decision without such evidence. Cf. Bace v. Ashcroft,

352 F.3d 1133, 1138-39 (7th Cir. 2003) (holding that there

was “ample evidence” that Albanian Democrat was persecuted on account of political opinion after he refused to

certify fraudulent election returns in 1998). See also Hor,

421 F.3d at 499-500 (remanding case involving adverse

credibility determination, in part because IJ relied on

unsubstantiated assumption that petitioner’s alleged

persecutors would have attacked him, if at all, “ ‘long before

five months [had] passed’ ”).

B. Inconsistency With State Department Profile

Shtaro next argues that the IJ erred in discrediting her

testimony on the ground that it was “inconsistent” with a

contemporaneous State Department country profile. She

cites our decision in Bace, 352 F.3d at 1139, for the proposition that “specific events of an applicant’s testimony cannot

be ‘contradicted’ by a generalized State Department country

report.” To the extent she suggests that the IJ’s use of the

profile was wholly foreclosed by our precedent, she is

incorrect; the error we identified in Bace was that the IJ’s
No. 04-4201 7

“entire finding” against the petitioners rested on a broad

observation in the country profile that political persecution

of individuals in Albania was rare. Id. at 1141. Here the IJ

did not rely exclusively on the country profile. Nonetheless,

we agree that there is no basis for the IJ’s finding that the

profile was inconsistent with Shtaro’s testimony. Nothing in

the profile contradicts any aspect of her recital of the events

in Vlora; moreover, its statement that the October 2000

election involved little violence nationwide despite assertions of voting irregularities actually corroborates

her account of manipulated election returns followed by

“peaceful” protests.

C. “Inconsistent” Documentary Submissions

Shtaro also contests the IJ’s finding that her testimony

was inconsistent with the letter from the current Democratic Party Chairman, confirming the period of her employment with the Party, and the letters from the doctor who

treated her after the March 2 attacks. The IJ disbelieved

that any rape occurred because no rape was mentioned in

either the Chairman’s letter (which stated that Shtaro told

the Party she was leaving her job because of complications

with her pregnancy, without ascribing them to rape), or the

doctor’s letters. But adverse credibility determinations may

not be based on minor discrepancies that are easily explained, see Tolosa v. Ashcroft, 384 F.3d 906, 909 (7th Cir.

2004), and the IJ did not attempt to ascertain whether

these omissions could be accounted for. See Uwase, 349 F.3d

at 1042-43 (holding that failure to explore “possible explanations” for an inconsistency “cast[s] doubt on [the IJ’s]

credibility determination”). Shtaro should not have been

discredited simply because she did not tell her employer

that she was raped. Cf. Kebede v. Ashcroft, 366 F.3d 808,

811 (9th Cir. 2004) (“victim of sexual assault does not

irredeemably compromise his or her credibility by failing to
8 No. 04-4201

report the assault at the first opportunity”). Nor should the

doctor’s letters have been discounted as “inconsistent”

absent any showing that her failure to specify the origin

of Shtaro’s injuries was significant. See Hor, 421 F.3d at 500

(psychiatrist’s failure to mention terrorist incident as cause

of alien’s post-traumatic stress syndrome was not “reasoned

basis” for adverse credibility determination).

D. “Unreliable” Documentary Submissions

Finally, Shtaro contends that the IJ inappropriately

discredited her testimony because he suspected that her

documents were fraudulent. He specifically found that she

falsified the police report purporting to certify that she was

“arrested” on March 2 and the copies of her employment

contracts, and impugned the rest of her documents generally because she did not authenticate them in the manner

described in 8 C.F.R. § 287.6. The IJ also inferred that

because she used fraudulent documents to enter the United

States and did not seek asylum for approximately a year,

her “documentation and claim may . . . be fraudulent.” We

agree with Shtaro that none of these considerations is an

adequate basis for an adverse credibility determination.

If there was legitimate reason to think that Shtaro

submitted fraudulent documents, the IJ would have been

entitled to disbelieve her. See Hysi, 411 F.3d at 852-53;

Kourski v. Ashcroft, 355 F.3d 1038, 1040 (7th Cir. 2004).

But his skepticism concerning the police report and the

employment contracts is not supported by substantial

evidence. The IJ did not explain why he doubted that the

police would be willing to “issue a letter at the respondent’s

request” if her story was true. And we cannot see why he

thought Shtaro’s voluntary admission that she signed the

copies of her employment contracts upon receiving them in

the United States “undercut the reliability of her other

evidence.”
No. 04-4201 9

Nor can we uphold the IJ’s decision upon his grounds

for impeaching the authenticity of her documents generally.

The IJ points out that Shtaro did not authenticate

her documents in the manner specified in 8 C.F.R. § 287.6.

But failure to so authenticate does not amount to presumptive proof of falsity. See Leia v. Ashcroft, 393 F.3d 427,

434 (3d Cir. 2005); Shire v. Ashcroft, 388 F.3d 1288, 1299

(9th Cir. 2004); Georgis v. Ashcroft, 328 F.3d 962, 969 (7th

Cir. 2003). We have also rejected the idea that an alien may

be found incredible simply because she used a false passport, see Dong, 421 F.3d at 578-79; see also Yongo v. INS,

355 F.3d 27, 33 (1st Cir. 2004). And even if we were satisfied that Shtaro’s delay in applying for asylum was probative with respect to her claims, see Dong, 421 F.3d at 579,

it would not be sufficient in itself to support the adverse

credibility finding. See Georgis, 328 F.3d at 970 (remanding

where only one out of six reasons given by IJ for denying

petition was supported by substantial evidence).

Bearing in mind that a credibility analysis requires only

that the petitioner’s claim be internally consistent, detailed,

and plausible, see Capric v. Ashcroft, 355 F.3d 1075, 1085

(7th Cir. 2004), we conclude that the IJ’s adverse credibility

determination is not supported by substantial evidence. “A

credibility analysis should not be confused with a burden of

proof analysis, which considers and weighs all the surrounding evidence.” Id.

III. Conclusion

We GRANT the petition for review and REMAND the

case for further proceedings.
10 No. 04-4201

A true Copy:

Teste: 

 ________________________________

Clerk of the United States Court of

Appeals for the Seventh Circuit 

USCA-02-C-0072—1-24-06