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RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION 

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) 

File Name: 15a0053p.06 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

_________________ 

ANGELIQUE UWINEZA, 

Petitioner, 

v. 

ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., Attorney General, 

Respondent. 

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No. 14-3122 

Upon Petition for Review of an Order of 

the Board of Immigration Appeals. 

No. A 089 303 663. 

Decided and Filed: January 21, 2015*

Before: GIBBONS and STRANCH, Circuit Judges; REEVES, District Judge.**

_________________ 

COUNSEL 

ON BRIEF: Bryan Scott Hicks, Lebanon, Ohio, for Petitioner. Corey L. Farrell, UNITED 

STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. 

_________________ 

OPINION

_________________ 

 PER CURIAM. Angelique Uwineza, a citizen of Rwanda, petitions through counsel for 

review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denying her motion to reopen her 

removal proceeding. 

 *

This decision originally issued as an “unpublished decision” filed on January 21, 2015. The court has now 

designated the opinion as one recommended for full-text publication. 

**The Honorable Pamela L. Reeves, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Tennessee, 

sitting by designation. 

>
No. 14-3122 Uwineza v. Holder Page 2 

 Uwineza was born in Rwanda in 1986. When she was eight years old, a civil war broke 

out in that country. She and her family fled to a refugee camp in what is now the Democratic 

Republic of the Congo. After the war, they returned to Rwanda. Uwineza’s parents’ property 

was confiscated and they relocated to the capital. In 2008, Uwineza came to the United States on 

a student visa. She applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the 

Convention Against Torture. Her applications were denied. The BIA dismissed her appeal in 

April of 2013, and this court denied her petition for review, agreeing that she had not been 

subject to past persecution and could not demonstrate a likelihood of future persecution given the 

improved conditions in Rwanda. 

In November 2013, Uwineza filed a motion with the BIA to reopen her case. She alleged 

that she had received information from a friend and a relative in the summer of 2013 that 

government security forces were looking for her, believing her to be a supporter of Victoire 

Ingabure, an important figure in a party opposed to the ruling government of Rwanda, who is 

currently imprisoned in that country. In support, she offered the e-mails she received from her 

friend and uncle. Other evidentiary submissions included a report from Amnesty International 

mentioning that some supporters of Ingabure had been arrested in 2013. The BIA denied the 

motion on the ground that it was untimely, because it was filed more than 90 days after the 

BIA’s April 2013 order. Acknowledging that an exception to the 90-day requirement allows for 

a motion containing new evidence that demonstrates changed conditions in the country of 

removal, the BIA nevertheless found that Uwineza’s motion did not satisfy that exception. It 

found that the e-mails Uwineza submitted were unsworn, apparently created to support her 

motion, and were from interested witnesses not subject to cross-examination. 

We review a denial of a motion to reopen for an abuse of discretion, which may be found 

where the BIA’s decision is without rational explanation, inexplicably departs from established 

policies, or rests on an impermissible basis. Kukalo v. Holder, 744 F.3d 395, 402 (6th Cir. 

2011). Uwineza argues that the BIA’s decision is without rational explanation, citing Yo Yun 

Zhang v. Holder, 702 F.3d 878, 881-82 (6th Cir. 2012), which held that the BIA cannot refuse to 

credit evidence on the grounds that it is unsworn or written in support of a petitioner’s case, in 

the absence of any evidence of falsity. We find this argument persuasive. The new evidence 
No. 14-3122 Uwineza v. Holder Page 3 

appears to satisfy the requirements of not having been previously available and indicating a 

change in conditions in Rwanda material to Uwineza’s claim. The BIA rejected the evidence on 

the ground that the letters were unsworn and appeared to have been written in support of her 

case, which we have found invalid. The BIA also noted that the letters were from interested 

witnesses, but interested witnesses would normally be expected to have information relevant to a 

petitioner’s claim, and that the witnesses were not subject to cross-examination, which will also 

normally be the case in a motion to reopen. Therefore, we find the rejection of this evidence to 

be without rational explanation. We thus grant Uwineza’s petition for review, vacate the BIA’s 

order, and remand this matter for further proceedings.