Opinion ID: 78460
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The Board Failed To Give Reasoned Consideration to Kazemzadeh's Claim of a Well-Founded Fear of Religious Persecution.

Text: The closer issue presented by Kazemzadeh's petition is whether he has a well-founded fear of persecution based on his religious conversion. The Board found that Kazemzadeh's conversion to Christianity is genuine, and it is undisputed that apostasy is a capital offense in Iran. Kazemzadeh's petition depends on whether the record compels a finding of a reasonable possibility that he will be persecuted for being a convert. At oral argument, counsel for the Attorney General contended that the record allows an inference that Kazemzadeh will not practice Christianity when he returns to Iran, but we disagree. There is no evidence that Kazemzadeh will cease practicing Christianity in Iran. Neither the Board nor the Immigration Judge discredited Kazemzadeh's testimony or other evidence about his conversion, which means that we will not allow the government to suggest now that Kazemzadeh's conversion is less than credible. Where an [Immigration Judge] fails to explicitly find an applicant's testimony incredible and cogently explain his or her reasons for doing so, we accept the applicant's testimony as credible. De Santamaria, 525 F.3d at 1011 n. 10; see also Mejia v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 498 F.3d 1253, 1257 (11th Cir.2007) (The [Immigration Judge] did not [make an adverse credibility finding] here, and thus we accept Mejia's testimony as credible.). When the Board ruled that Kazemzadeh failed to prove that there is a pattern or practice of persecution in Iran against Muslims who convert to Christianity, the Board was entitled to rely heavily on the 2005 country report for Iran published by the State Department. Reyes-Sanchez v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 369 F.3d 1239, 1243 (11th Cir.2004). The report stated that [s]ome unofficial estimates indicated that there were approximately 100 thousand Muslim-born citizens who converted to Christianity, but that there were no reported instances of the death penalty being applied for apostasy during the year. There was one unconfirmed report on Christian Web sites that on November 22, unidentified persons killed a man who had converted to Christianity more than 10 years earlier. The report also stated that, on December 19, a Baha'i apostate, who was arrested in 1995 and faced a life sentence for apostasy, died in prison of unknown causes and that [t]wo other Baha'is were in prison at year's end, including [one] who .... was sentenced to three years in prison for activities against the security of the state and spreading falsehoods. If the record contained only this evidence of religious persecution, then we would be hard-pressed to overturn the decision of the Board that Kazemzadeh failed to prove a pattern or practice of religious persecution. The problem with the decision of the Board is that it failed to consider two important aspects of the record. Kazemzadeh offered evidence about religious persecution and his personal encounters with the Iranian regime that neither the Board nor the Immigration Judge mentioned in reference to Kazemzadeh's conversion. As a result, the Board did not give reasoned consideration to Kazemzadeh's application or make adequate findings. Tan, 446 F.3d at 1375 (internal quotation marks omitted). First, neither the Board nor the Immigration Judge considered Kazemzadeh's testimony that Iranians who convert from Islam to Christianity practice underground. We agree with the decision of the Seventh Circuit that having to practice religion underground to avoid punishment is itself a form of persecution. See Muhur v. Ashcroft, 355 F.3d 958, 960-61 (7th Cir. 2004) (Posner, J.). We have recognized that the [Immigration and Nationality Act] and related regulations ... do not require applicants ... to avoid signaling to others that they are indeed members of a particular race, or adherents of a certain religion, etc. Antipova v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 392 F.3d 1259, 1264-65 (11th Cir.2004). The Board relied on the 2005 country report to find that Kazemzadeh failed to prove that the law against apostasy is often enforced, but the Board did not consider whether enforcement is rare because apostates practice underground and suffer instead that form of persecution to avoid detection and punishment. We are unpersuaded by the dissent that the necessity of practicing underground is not of concern in this case because [i]t seems implausible that the near-total absence of documented persecution of apostates in Iran is due simply to the fact that the 100,000 Christian converts are able to keep their Christianity under wraps. The unofficial estimate of 100,000 Christian converts in Iran represents only 0.147 percent of the total population of Iran in 2005. We cannot say that it is implausible that such a small minority would be able to avoid punishment by concealing their religion. Second, although the Board is correct that there is no evidence that anyone in Iran knows about Kazemzadeh's conversion, neither the Board nor the Immigration Judge considered whether Kazemzadeh is a person about whom the Iranian regime already has a heightened interest. Kazemzadeh testified that when he was in Iran he was arrested, detained, beaten, and monitored because of his political activities. Kazemzadeh also testified that he was expelled from the university he attended in Iran for not following the Islamic tradition and was sentenced in absentia after he left Iran to six years of imprisonment for his participation in antigovernment activities. Kazemzadeh testified that his father had been a high school philosophy teacher, but was no longer allowed to hold a government position because he was involved with an anti-government group and tried to convince the other students to follow his ideal. Kazemzadeh testified that in 1988 the Iranian government arrested his father, detained him for five days, tried and convicted him in absentia upon his release, discharged him from his teaching position, and barred him from future government employment. Kazemzadeh also testified that his sibling was unable to work because of his father's activities. The Board and the Immigration Judge considered this evidence with reference to Kazemzadeh's application based on political persecution, but this evidence was also relevant to Kazemzadeh's application for asylum based on religious persecution. Neither the Board nor the Immigration Judge mentioned whether the evidence that Kazemzadeh is a person about whom the Iranian regime already has a heightened interest makes it more likely that Kazemzadeh's religious conversion will be discovered and become a basis for persecution should he return to Iran. The dissent argues that our decision to remand so the Board can consider these aspects of the record is contrary to the deference we traditionally afford Immigration Courts in reaching the ultimate decision, but we disagree. Although the dissent states that we typically do not require Immigration Judges or the Board to explicitly address every particular consideration in their opinions, a remand is necessary when the record suggests that the Board failed to consider important evidence in that record. Tan, 446 F.3d at 1374. That is the case here.