Opinion ID: 797143
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Inconsistencies regarding Lin's protest at the hospital

Text: 69 As he argued to the BIA, Lin first contends that the IJ exaggerated the difference between the 1994 and 2000 accounts of Lin's alleged protest at the hospital, and, as a result, erroneously relied upon those inconsistencies in doubting Lin's credibility concerning his wife's abortions. Although we are largely unpersuaded by Lin's efforts to minimize his shifting accounts of the hospital protest, we are nonetheless concerned by the IJ's holding that Lin's lack of credibility as to that event impugned Lin's account of his wife's forced abortions. 70 As a factual matter, the record supports the IJ's determination that the 1994 and 2000 versions of Lin's conduct at the hospital during his wife's second abortion were inconsistent. 27 As set forth above, Lin's 1994 testimony—in particular the alleged participation of other individuals at the hospital and Lin's narrow escape from the authorities—differed from the 2000 account in which Lin was a solitary actor, was briefly detained, but was allowed to leave at the conclusion of his wife's surgery. 71 Yet the identification of testimonial inconsistencies does not end our inquiry. As frequently has been held, while an IJ's application of the maxim falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus may at times be appropriate, an applicant's testimonial discrepancies— and, at times, even outright lies— must be weighed in light of their significance to the total context of his or her claim of persecution. See Secaida-Rosales, 331 F.3d at 308; Diallo v. INS, 232 F.3d 279, 288 (2d Cir.2000); In re O-D-, 21 I. & N. Dec. 1079, 1081-83 (BIA 1998); see also Yongo v. INS, 355 F.3d 27, 33 (1st Cir. 2004) (Obviously there are some lies that, because of their circumstances and limited relationship to the main issue, do relatively little to discredit other statements.). Testimonial inconsistencies are not sufficient as the sole basis for an adverse credibility finding where the inconsistencies do not concern the basis for the claim of asylum or withholding, but rather matters collateral or ancillary to the claim. Secaida-Rosales, 331 F.3d at 308 (emphasis added); see also Borovikova v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 435 F.3d 151, 167 (2d Cir.2006). 72 This principle inherently includes a dimension of proportionality, i.e., that the agency has properly assessed the scale of the inconsistency in the context of the balance of the alien's testimony. In Alvarado-Carillo v. INS, 251 F.3d 44 (2d Cir. 2001), we used the example that one might easily and quickly characterize a person shopping for groceries as `forgetful' if, after being instructed to buy four specific grocery items, he or she failed to purchase one and got the wrong brand of another; on the other hand, the evaluation of a person making the same errors after an instruction to purchase twenty specific items would almost certainly not be the same. Id. at 51. In other words, the significance of an inconsistency can be overstated or understated if viewed in isolation, and overstatement is especially likely where the inconsistency bears little on the applicant's claim. 73 The legal significance of Lin's inconsistency regarding the hospital protest, therefore, depends on the basis of Lin's claim for asylum. When the agency reopened Lin's claim in 2000 in view of the amended definition of refugee under the INA, Lin's wife's forced abortions acquired new significance. As stated by the IJ himself, the key issue for Lin's reopened application was whether Lin was the spouse of a person who had been compelled to abort a pregnancy, within the meaning of In re C-Y-Z-, 21 I. & N. Dec. at 918, and the IJ made his adverse credibility finding regarding the hospital protest in the context of that claim. Forcible abortions of his wife's pregnancies, then, were the heart of Lin's claim in 2000, and the IJ's adverse credibility inferences regarding the incident at the hospital must be understood in that context. Thus situated, we find that the change in testimony regarding the scale of Lin's objection to government policy to have been a relatively minor discrepancy at the periphery of Lin's claim for relief. See Diallo, 232 F.3d at 288; Secaida-Rosales, 331 F.3d at 308. 74 Significantly, as to the two alleged abortions and two threats of sterilization, Lin's testimony at both his 1994 and 2000 hearings was consistent except in the dating of the first abortion. Applying our reasoning in Alvarado-Carillo, Lin's consistency with respect to myriad details at the heart his claim for persecution is an important setting for assessing his credibility. See 251 F.3d at 51. And, as discussed below, the IJ found that Lin's wife's affidavit corroborated the occurrence of the forced abortions. The testimonial inconsistencies about the scope and details of Lin's behavior at the hospital—which might fatally undermine Lin's claim to asylum if based on episodes of anti-government conduct— were not sufficiently weighty to overcome the consistency of numerous core facts relating to Lin's claim for asylum based on his spouse's forced abortions. As a result, while we cannot deem erroneous the IJ's factual finding of testimonial embellishment with respect to Lin's expression of dissent at the hospital, we conclude that these testimonial differences cannot on their own bear dispositive weight with respect to Lin's claims that his spouse had been forced to abort two pregnancies. 75