In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 13-1792

MARIYA BORISOVA GEORGIEVA and

LACHEZAR D. DIMITROV,

Petitioners,

v.

ERIC H. HOLDER, JR.,

Attorney General of the United States,

Respondent.

____________________

On Petition for Review of a Final Order of

the Board of Immigration Appeals.

____________________

ARGUED JANUARY 15, 2014 — DECIDED MAY 6, 2014

____________________

Before FLAUM, EASTERBROOK, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

FLAUM, Circuit Judge. Mariya Borisova Georgieva and 

Lachezar Dimitrov are Roma asylum-seekers. In 2002, the 

couple left Bulgaria and entered the United States legally.

They say they were fleeing some of their non-Roma countrymen who had threatened Georgieva after she resisted being forced into the sex trade and became active in pro-Roma 
2 No. 13-1792

politics. Georgieva and Dimitrov also say they wanted to escape the atmosphere of persecution that faces the Roma 

people in Bulgaria. The immigration judge found

Georgieva’s testimony incredible and denied Georgieva and 

Dimitrov asylum. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed the immigration judge’s decision. We deny the couple’s petition for review.

I. Background

Georgieva and Dimitrov were born in Bulgaria and are 

Bulgarian citizens. They were admitted to the United States 

on March 6, 2002.1 On March 5, 2003, Georgieva timely requested asylum, withholding of removal, and protection 

under the Convention Against Torture. On her application,

Georgieva listed her husband Dimitrov as a derivative beneficiary. Georgieva filed her application with the Immigration 

and Naturalization Service, which referred her case to the 

Department of Justice’s immigration courts on April 9, because the immigration courts have exclusive jurisdiction 

over Visa Waiver Program asylum applicants. 8 C.F.R. 

 

1 Both were admitted under the Visa Waiver Program, which is a reciprocal waiver arrangement where the United States waives its visa requirement and in exchange the visitor waives his or her right to contest 

admissibility determinations on removal (except for asylum applications, 

withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against 

Torture). 8 U.S.C. § 1187(b)(2); Bao Tai Nian v. Holder, 683 F.3d 1227, 1228 

(9th Cir. 2012). Visa Waiver Program entrants are entitled to something 

of a “shortcut” in the asylum process, because they can proceed directly 

to a hearing before an immigration judge, bypassing some preliminary 

steps. See, e.g., Bayo v. Napolitano, 593 F.3d 495, 499 (7th Cir. 2010). The 

program is available for citizens of thirty-eight different countries, but 

Bulgaria is not among them. It is not clear from the record how 

Georgieva and Dimitrov were admitted through the program.
No. 13-1792 3

§ 1208.2(c)(1)(iii). Proceedings commenced in August 2004, 

but the case was continued several times. Georgieva and 

Dimitrov did not appear before an immigration judge until 

May 2011.

Georgieva’s credibility is the central issue in this case, because she provided most of the relevant facts and documentary evidence is sparse. Georgieva included in her asylum 

application a six-page statement describing her experiences

in Bulgaria. She also testified at her immigration hearing, 

and discrepancies emerged between the statement and her 

testimony. We note where the stories diverge as we go.

Georgieva grew up in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. As a Roma 

child, she faced challenges. For example, she described one 

incident in the sixth grade, where a few non-Roma boys followed her into the bathroom at school. They pushed her 

down, beat her, yelled at her and called her “a dirty gypsy,” 

and urinated on her. She reported the incident to school officials. But instead of responding, the officials accused her of 

lying and punished her. Georgieva says she received high 

grades in school and applied to colleges, but that she was 

not admitted because she was Roma.

In 2000, Georgieva began working either for a cleaning 

company or as a street sweeper for Blagoevgrad County 

(there is a discrepancy between her statement and hearing 

testimony). In November 2000, Georgieva’s boss allegedly 

called her into his office and offered her a higher-paying job 

working in a meat factory in Naples, Italy; he claimed the 

position was part of an exchange program. Georgieva accepted, and met her boss’s associates at the Blagoevgrad bus 

station, where there were seven other Roma women who 

had accepted the same “offer.” The bus was to travel 
4 No. 13-1792

through Macedonia and other former Yugoslav Republics on 

the way to Naples. 

Shortly after the bus crossed into Macedonia, the group

stopped for lunch at a hotel. Armed men arrived and ordered the women into hotel rooms. The women were then

given clothing and makeup and returned to the hotel lobby 

where they were displayed to “important” men who would 

select them for sex. At this point Georgieva’s asylum application begins to differ markedly from her hearing testimony.

In her application statement Georgieva wrote that she 

“was forced to have sex with a strange man who paid for her 

like she was meat.” She claimed that this happened multiple 

times—enough that she lost track of the days—and that the

captors moved the women around to different places. Eventually, Georgieva escaped by hitting a man over the head 

with a lamp as he was undressing. She ran away, and was 

aided by Macedonian laborers working in a field. The laborers gave her a change of clothes, and eventually a “nice old 

man” drove her back to the Bulgarian border. Georgieva

said it took her three more days to get home from there.

Her hearing testimony differs in several particulars. Although Georgieva still claimed that she was abducted and 

that her captors tried to force her into the sex trade, she said 

that she never had sex with anyone, because she cracked the 

head of the very first man who selected her on the first day

in Macedonia. She said she walked all the way back to 

Blagoevgrad after her escape, which took her two days in 

total. Once home, she tried to report her story to the police, 

the prime minister, and other officials within the Bulgarian 

government, but to no avail.
No. 13-1792 5

Georgieva’s stories converge again here. In 2001, she became involved with a group called Euroroma that advocated 

for Roma rights in Europe. She volunteered there for the 

next year. Dimitrov and his family were active in the organization, too. Through Georgieva’s work there, the couple met 

and began to date.

At some point after she started working for Euroroma, 

Georgieva says she received telephone threats from associates of her former boss. She also claims that in January of 

2002, two men who worked in the sex-trafficking ring abducted her outside the Euroroma office. One of the men told 

her that “gypsies like you don’t live long.” The men took 

Georgieva to an abandoned building and beat her so severely that she passed out.

The accounts diverge again after the beating. In her application, Georgieva claimed that she woke up a few days 

later in the hospital; some kids had found her in the building

and the police had taken her to the hospital. At her hearing, 

however, she testified that the beating put her into a coma 

for twenty or twenty-one days and broke her jaw. 

Georgieva’s jaw required surgery, but the hospital refused 

service because Georgieva was Roma and she had no health 

insurance. Instead, Dimitrov found a private dentist who did

a minimal amount of repair work for a small cost.

Shortly after the beating incident, the couple left for the 

United States. Dimitrov testified that Georgieva suffered 

from pain and constant headaches as a result of the beating

and that she has received additional medical care in Evanston, Illinois. Both testified that they fear persecution if they 

are returned to Bulgaria, especially because both of their 

families have left the country and now reside in Italy and the 
6 No. 13-1792

United Kingdom. Georgieva and Dimitrov have two American-born sons, aged six and ten, and the older son has been 

diagnosed with autism.

At the outset of the hearing, the immigration judge found 

Georgieva’s different accounts of her time in Macedonia 

“very clear, detailed, and specific,” and impossible to reconcile. The immigration judge thought the discrepancies serious, and decided that Georgieva had not adequately explained them. Moreover, the immigration judge had brought 

the discrepancies to Georgieva’s attention at the outset of the 

hearing. Georgieva claimed that her asylum application was 

inaccurate, but she made only small tweaks that did not address the central inconsistencies and she did not explain why 

she had not amended her application further. The immigration judge acknowledged that inaccuracies in initial asylum 

applications are common, often because of faulty translations or the lack of counsel. But an attorney assisted 

Georgieva in preparing her application and Georgieva did 

not claim that the translation was faulty. The immigration 

judge went on to find that Georgieva had not provided

enough documentary evidence to corroborate her story, and 

so ordered Georgieva and Dimitrov removed to Bulgaria.

The couple appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, and while the appeal was pending also filed a motion 

to remand to the immigration judge. In their remand motion, 

the couple argued that they had received ineffective assistance both from their counsel before the immigration judge 

and from the lawyer who had helped prepare Georgieva’s 

initial application.

Before the Board, Georgieva and Dimitrov’s new attorneys argued that any discrepancies in Georgieva’s stories 
No. 13-1792 7

were due to clerical or translation errors, and that Georgieva 

had not had an opportunity to explain them. But the Board

found that the immigration judge’s credibility finding was 

based on specific evidence and was adequately explained. 

The Board also found that Georgieva had been given the opportunity to reconcile her stories, but had not done so. Finally, the Board denied the request for a remand based on inadequate assistance, because it thought Georgieva and Dimitrov’s counsel in the immigration proceedings competent.

II. Discussion

In cases like this, where the Board of Immigration Appeals’ order supplements the decision of the immigration 

judge, we review the immigration judge’s opinion as supplemented by the Board. Raghunathan v. Holder, 604 F.3d 371, 

379 (7th Cir. 2010). We review factual findings only to ensure 

that substantial evidence supports the immigration judge’s 

or Board’s decision. See, e.g., Abdoulaye v. Holder, 721 F.3d 

485, 490 (7th Cir. 2013).

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Attorney 

General or the Secretary of Homeland Security may grant 

asylum to refugees. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b). A refugee is “any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality 

... who is unable or unwilling to return to ... that country 

because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution 

on account of race, nationality, membership in a particular 

social group, or political opinion ... .” 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1101(a)(42)(A). This means asylum applicants must show 

either past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution because of membership in a protected class. See 

Wang v. Gonzales, 445 F.3d 993, 997–98 (7th Cir. 2006). An 

applicant’s proof of past persecution can come from multiple 
8 No. 13-1792

sources, including a recitation of her experiences in her asylum application, testimony at her immigration hearing, and 

any supporting documentary evidence, if it exists. Capric v. 

Ashcroft, 355 F.3d 1075, 1085 (7th Cir. 2004). 

A. The immigration judge’s credibility finding

In asylum cases, traditional or objective means of authenticating an applicant’s statements can be difficult or impossible–applicants often hail from war-torn, impoverished, or

inhospitable parts of the world. Thus, the immigration judge

must often evaluate the credibility of the applicant claiming 

persecution, which the immigration judge can do by considering the “internal consistency, detail, and plausibility” of 

the applicant’s story. Capric, 355 F.3d at 1085 (citations omitted). If the applicant’s testimony is credible, it can be sufficient to satisfy her burden. But if the immigration judge

finds the applicant incredible due to inconsistencies, then the 

applicant must explain the discrepancies and provide credible, extrinsic evidence in corroboration. Id. at 1086.

Georgieva applied for asylum before the enactment of 

the Real ID Act, which limits judicial review of an immigration judge’s credibility finding. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii).

The new standards apply only to asylum applications submitted after the enactment of the statute—May 11, 2005. Pub. 

L. No. 109-13, § 101, 119 Stat. 231, 305 (2005); Mitondo v. 

Mukasey, 523 F.3d 784, 787 (7th Cir. 2008). Thus, we review 

Georgieva’s application under pre–Real ID Act law. We will 

uphold the immigration judge’s credibility finding so long as 

it is supported by “specific, cogent reasons [bearing] a legitimate nexus to the finding.” Capric, 355 F.3d at 1086 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Only those inconsistencies that “go to the heart of” the applicant’s asylum 
No. 13-1792 9

claim can support an incredibility finding; minor inconsistencies on peripheral matters cannot. Id. at 1090.2

The immigration judge’s incredibility finding in this case

centered on Georgieva’s two retellings of her encounter with 

the Macedonian sex trade. Simply put, Georgieva could not 

have been forced to have sex with multiple individuals over 

multiple nights but also have escaped on her first night in 

Macedonia without having sex with anybody. She also could 

not have been sheltered by Macedonian laborers and shuttled to the Bulgarian border by a kindly old man while also 

walking all the way from Macedonia back to Blagoevgrad.

These discrepancies fairly “go to the heart of” Georgieva’s 

claim. The incident in Macedonia was central to her claim of 

past persecution.

We have warned of the problems that can sometimes 

arise with statements that accompany initial asylum applications—i.e., poor translators, careless or unscrupulous preparers, or the lack of legal counsel. See, e.g., Chen v. Gonzales, 

420 F.3d 707, 710 (7th Cir. 2005). But the immigration judge 

realized and discussed these problems and Georgieva did 

not argue that there were translation problems. She also had 

an attorney representing her when she filed her application.3

 2 Under the Real ID Act, by contrast, immigration judges can base an 

adverse credibility finding on any inconsistency, whether it goes to the 

heart of the applicant’s claim or not. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii).

3 The immigration judge also noted the other, more minor inconsistencies in Georgieva’s stories. The immigration judge took care to note that 

these inconsistencies (relating to Georgieva’s former place of employment and the way Georgieva arrived at the hospital after being assaulted) would not have supported an incredibility finding on their own, but 

further supported the incredibility finding.
10 No. 13-1792

The immigration judge also afforded Georgieva the 

chance to cure the inconsistencies by amending her statement. When she was asked specifically about the discrepancies, Georgieva said that she had “clarified with her attorney 

that her original statement was in error.” But she did not attempt to explain how the error on the application occurred 

in the first place or offer any further explanation. Her attorney amended the application to correct a few clerical errors, 

but left the heart of the story intact.

The immigration judge also properly gave Georgieva the 

chance to corroborate her testimony and rehabilitate herself 

with documentary evidence. See Uwase v. Ashcroft, 349 F.3d 

1039, 1041 (7th Cir. 2003). Georgieva attempted to corroborate her story by introducing a copy of her passport pages 

showing that she left Bulgaria for Macedonia and returned 

one day later, her Euroroma membership card, and medical 

records from when she was assaulted outside Euroroma. But 

the immigration judge was unconvinced, because these documents did not cure the fundamental inconsistencies in her 

testimony. The immigration judge also explained that 

Georgieva could have reasonably provided additional corroboration—perhaps via affidavits from family or friends—

of the beating she suffered as a child or the attempt to sell 

her into the sex trade. If such evidence was unavailable, it 

was Georgieva’s burden to explain why she had not produced it and why it was unreasonable for the immigration 

judge to expect her to do so. See Hussain v. Gonzales, 424 F.3d 

622, 629 (7th Cir. 2005) (noting that an immigration judge 

must explain “why it is reasonable to expect additional corroboration ... [and] an account of why the petitioner’s explanation for not producing that corroboration is inadequate.”). She did not explain either. Accordingly, it was rea-
No. 13-1792 11

sonable for the immigration judge to conclude that 

Georgieva had not overcome the discrepancies in her stories 

that led to the incredibility finding. 

One feature that gives us pause is that Georgieva’s hearing testimony, which she claims is the accurate telling, is actually the less severe of the two stories. An asylum applicant

would be more likely to embellish, not scale back, her story 

at the hearing, in an effort to bolster her case. See, e.g., Xiao v. 

Mukasey, 547 F.3d 712, 717 (7th Cir. 2008) (upholding adverse credibility finding where an asylum-seeker initially 

failed to disclose alleged forced abortion at the hands of 

Chinese officials but then sought to include it in her application and at her hearing). But this feature of Georgieva’s case 

cannot rescue her from the immigration judge’s adverse 

credibility finding. Our decision in Ahmad v. INS, 163 F.3d 

457 (7th Cir. 1999), is instructive. The asylum applicant there 

was an Ahmadi Muslim seeking to avoid removal to Pakistan. In his asylum application, he claimed that Sunni Muslims in Pakistan had regularly tortured him and had threatened him if he did not leave the country. But at his hearing, 

the applicant walked back his accusations—he claimed that 

while his tormenters tied him to a pole overnight, they had 

harassed him only once and never tortured him. Id. at 459–

62. So while we also face testimony less horrific than the allegations contained in the initial application, we must affirm 

the immigration judge’s finding, as we did in Ahmad.

Georgieva had a new lawyer before the Board of Immigration Appeals and sought a remand to the immigration 

court in part for ineffective assistance of counsel. She 

claimed that the deficient performances of both the attorney 

who helped prepare her initial application statement and the 
12 No. 13-1792

attorneys who represented her in the immigration court led 

to the adverse credibility finding. But the Board found the 

performance of Georgieva’s former attorneys adequate, especially since her second crop of attorneys had the opportunity to—and did—amend her earlier statement.

On appeal, Georgieva does not argue ineffective assistance of counsel directly, but she raises the same alleged 

shortcomings by her attorneys to explain the inconsistencies 

in her testimony. In short, she says that her asylum application statement was inaccurately taken by her first lawyer, 

and that the lawyers who represented her in the immigration court failed to amend the meat of her claim (though 

they did change a few dates), despite telling her that they 

would. The immigration judge asked Georgieva directly 

about the inconsistencies in her story and she indicated that 

her lawyer had fixed the errors in her application. But she

now says that this was a misunderstanding on her part. 

What happened, she avers, is that the immigration judge and 

the attorneys had an untranslated colloquy where the small 

changes were actually made, and that she mistakenly 

thought the lawyer had made the substantive changes she 

requested. Thus, when the judge asked her about the inconsistencies between her application and hearing testimony, 

she did not know what she was conceding. 

Georgieva’s motion before the Board was brought pursuant to Matter of Lozada, 19 I. & N. Dec. 637 (B.I.A. 1988), 

which set forth procedures for pursuing an ineffective assistance of counsel claim before the Board. Lozada requires that 

the lawyer whose performance is being attacked be notified 

and be given the opportunity to respond. Id. at 639. 

Georgieva’s attorneys from the immigration court moved on 
No. 13-1792 13

their own to supplement the record before the Board and defend their performance—they said that Georgieva was confused about what had happened and had difficulty keeping 

her stories straight during hearing preparation, and that the 

immigration judge gave her plenty of opportunities to 

amend her application. Georgieva of course disputes this 

claim. But whatever actually transpired during Georgieva’s 

hearing preparation, she has nothing but her bare assertion 

to suggest that she was unaware of the contents of her 

statement or that the immigration judge did not give her a 

genuine opportunity to make corrections. In the immigration 

context, as in other areas, “[l]itigants are generally bound by 

the conduct of their attorneys, absent egregious circumstances.” Id. The immigration judge was in the best position 

to evaluate Georgieva’s credibility, and nothing about her 

lawyer’s performance requires us to upset the immigration 

judge’s finding of incredibility.

B. Past persecution

Though we affirm the immigration judge’s credibility determination, Georgieva would still be entitled to relief if she 

could demonstrate through independent evidence that she 

was a victim of past persecution. But persecution is more 

than harassment, and Georgieva cannot make the strong 

showing required. See Ciorba v. Ashcroft, 323 F.3d 539, 545 

(7th Cir. 2003). Persecution includes:

detention, arrest, interrogation, prosecution, imprisonment, illegal searches, confiscation of property, 

surveillance, beatings, torture, ... behavior that 

threatens the same ... and non-life-threatening behavior such as torture and economic deprivation if the resulting conditions are sufficiently severe. ... However, 
14 No. 13-1792

generalized conditions of hardship which affect entire 

populations do not rise to the level of persecution.

Capric, 355 F.3d at 1084 (internal citations and quotation 

marks omitted).

Outside of her testimony, Georgieva lacks evidence to 

show that she was persecuted because she is Roma. She has 

no evidence corroborating the childhood incident that occurred in the school restroom. She also has nothing to support her claim that she was targeted for the sex trade, nor 

anything to connect her 2002 assault to her status as a Roma. 

Although Georgieva did not contradict herself in the retelling of some incidents, such as the beating she suffered as a 

child, a “single discrepancy is enough to find petitioner’s entire testimony not credible.” Xiao, 547 F.3d at 717.

The corroborating evidence—consisting of Dimitrov’s 

testimony, a copy of a page from her passport, her Euroroma 

membership card, and some dental records—merely shows 

that Georgieva is Roma, that she was in Euroroma, that she 

was in Macedonia for one day in 2000, and that she had dental surgery after being assaulted in 2002. None of this evidence shows that any of the harm she suffered was because 

of her Roma heritage.

C. Well-founded fear of future persecution

Asylum applicants who have not been persecuted in the 

past can still demonstrate eligibility for asylum by showing a 

fear of future persecution that is subjectively genuine and 

objectively reasonable. See, e.g., Li Ying Zheng v. Holder, 722 

F.3d 986, 990 (7th Cir. 2013). The applicant’s subjective fear is 

generally established through her testimony and depends on 

the immigration judge’s evaluation of her credibility. Capric, 
No. 13-1792 15

355 F.3d at 1085. The objective component requires the applicant to prove either (1) a reasonable probability she will 

be singled out for persecution or (2) a pattern or practice of 

persecution against a particular group, to which she belongs. 

8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(2).

Georgieva introduced no evidence (except her testimony) 

that she would be singled out for persecution upon returning to Bulgaria. So she can prevail only if she can demonstrate a pattern or practice of mistreatment of the Roma people in Bulgaria. Pattern and practice requires a strong showing, and persecution of an ethnic group must be “extreme” 

to qualify. Mitreva v. Gonzales, 417 F.3d 761, 765 (7th Cir. 

2005). As we have often indicated, “[t]here must be a systematic, pervasive, or organized effort to kill, imprison, or 

severely injure members of the protected group, and this effort must be perpetrated or tolerated by state actors.” Id. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).

In Mitreva, we were also faced with a Roma asylumseeker from Bulgaria. The conditions on the ground for the 

Bulgarian Roma then were similar to what they are now. 

There is no doubt that the Roma are victims of pervasive 

discrimination in employment, education, health care, and 

housing, and are occasionally the targets of violence. See U.S. 

Dep’t of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 

for 2013, Bulgaria, at 24–26 (2013), available at 

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/220473.pdf. 

But there is no indication that the Bulgarian government 

sanctions this conduct. Id.; Mitreva, 417 F.3d at 766. If anything, State Department reports indicate that anti-Roma violence has declined since Mitreva was decided in 2005, even as

discrimination remains widespread. See U.S. Dep’t of State, 
16 No. 13-1792

2010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Bulgaria, 

at 23 (2010), available at 

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/160182.pdf.

In short, there is no reason for us to find a pattern of persecution of the Roma in Bulgaria in 2014 where there was none 

in 2005.

Georgieva also makes a claim for humanitarian asylum 

based on the “other serious harm” her family will suffer if 

removed, because of the ages of her children and her older 

son’s autism. However, humanitarian asylum is only available for those asylum-seekers who have demonstrated past 

persecution. See, e.g., Matter of L-S, 25 I. & N. Dec. 705, 710 

(B.I.A. 2008). Because Georgieva has not established past 

persecution, she is ineligible for humanitarian asylum.

Finally, to be eligible for withholding of removal, 

Georgieva must show a “clear probability” that she would 

be persecuted. Toure v. Holder, 624 F.3d 422, 428 (7th Cir. 

2010). Similarly, relief under the Convention Against Torture

only applies where it is “more likely than not” that the deportee will be tortured if returned to the country of removal. 

Id. at 429. Thus, Georgieva’s other claims require a stronger 

case than that needed for asylum, so they fail as well.

The petition for review is DENIED.