Case Name: Gloria Janett VANEGAS ARRUBLA, Petitioner, v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General, Respondent
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 2011-11-16
Citations: 458 F. App'x 645
Docket Number: No. 07-72764
Parties: Gloria Janett VANEGAS ARRUBLA, Petitioner, v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General, Respondent.
Judges: Before: PREGERSON and BYBEE, Circuit Judges, and DAVIDSON, Senior District Judge.
Reporter: West's Federal Appendix
Volume: 458
Pages: 645–647

Head Matter:
Gloria Janett VANEGAS ARRUBLA, Petitioner, v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General, Respondent.
No. 07-72764.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Argued and Submitted Oct. 14, 2011.
Filed Nov. 16, 2011.
Carmen M. Chavez, Esquire, Bardis Vakili, San Diego, CA, for Petitioner.
John Blakeley, Senior Litigation Counsel, Melissa Lynn Neiman-Kelting, Senior Litigation Counsel, Michelle Gorden Lat-our, Esquire, Assistant Director, DOJ— U.S. Department Of Justice, Civil Division/Office Of Immigration Litigation, Washington, DC, Chief Counsel Ice, Office Of the Chief Counsel Department Of Homeland Security, San Francisco, CA, for Respondent.
On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Agency No. [ AXXX-XXX-XXX ].
Before: PREGERSON and BYBEE, Circuit Judges, and DAVIDSON, Senior District Judge.
The Honorable Glen H. Davidson, Senior District Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, sitting by designation.

Opinion:
MEMORANDUM
Petitioner Gloria Janett Vanegas Arrub-la ("Vanegas") seeks review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") denying her application for asylum. She claims that she adequately demonstrated past persecution and a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of her political opinion by the gueril-la-terrorist organization FARC, entitling her to asylum. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1); 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(b).
Vanegas first contends that the BIA erred in concluding that she had failed to advance a political opinion claim before the Immigration Judge ("IJ"). We review the factual findings of the BIA for substantial evidence. Hamazaspyan v. Holder, 590 F.3d 744, 747 (9th Cir.2009). The BIA stated that Vanegas "only tangentially mentioned that she went to political meetings," "never testified that FARC was aware of her political activities" or sought to harm her because of them, and failed to explain why threats from FARC were related to her political activities. The BIA used these points in part to justify its conclusion that Vanegas failed to establish persecution on account of her political opinion. The record shows that Vanegas answered questions about her political opinion claim in the hearings before the IJ. Vanegas gave detailed testimony about her political participation and her reasons for her belief that FARC persecuted her on account of her political opinion in her asylum application and her interview with the asylum officer, which she expressly incorporated in her testimony before the IJ. Thus, because the BIA claims that Vane-gas failed to assert that which she quite clearly did assert, its conclusion that Vane-gas failed to advance a political opinion claim is unsupported by substantial evidence.
The BIA also concluded that even if Vanegas had established past persecution on account of her political opinion, "the fact that she no longer works for the travel agency is a 'fundamental change in circumstances' which would rebut her presumption of a well-founded fear" of future persecution. See 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(l)(i)(A). Vanegas contests this, and rightly so. It is not at all clear why FARC, if it had persecuted her on account of her political opinion, would cease doing so merely because she left the employ of the travel agency. This conclusion is therefore also unsupported by substantial evidence.
Because several premises on which the BIA ultimately concluded that Vanegas should not receive asylum were unsupported by substantial evidence, we remand this case to the BIA to consider and weigh the evidence in her asylum application and her interview with the asylum officer in the first instance. See INS v. Ventura, 537 U.S. 12, 16, 123 S.Ct. 353, 154 L.Ed.2d 272 (2002) (per curiam); Soto-Olarte v. Holder, 555 F.3d 1089, 1095-96 (9th Cir.2009).
PETITION FOR REVIEW GRANTED; REMANDED.
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
. Vanegas also submitted threatening letters that she claimed to have received and which appeared to have been authored by FARC. The BIA gave them "limited weight" because there was no evidence "that FARC produces such documents . and no way to authenticate the letters." Yet if the BIA did consider the letters as admitted in evidence, it is not clear why the fact of her receiving the threats and their messages to her, rather than their authorship, are not the more salient points. On remand, the BIA may wish to provide further explanation for its conclusions if it chooses to discount the letters.