Opinion ID: 780650
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Validity of the Marriage

Text: 20 We next address the BIA's conclusion that Mayo entered into a valid marriage with Juan Gamboa. The BIA rejected Judge Bryant's credibility determination of Mayor Valencia. Judge Bryant ruled that the Mayor's testimony was inconclusive and unreliable. He pointed to a number of inconsistent statements made by the Mayor. The Mayor's inconsistent statements led Judge Bryant to conclude that the Mayor signed Mayo's marriage license after the supposed marriage ceremony, thereby making the marriage void ab initio. The BIA rejected Judge Bryant's determination. The BIA said: We are not as quick as the immigration judge to discount the Mayor's testimony. The BIA stated that the Mayor's inconsistent statements do not provide it with adequate reason to discredit his entire testimony. 21 We are not satisfied with the BIA's explanation. The BIA did not give Judge Bryant's findings proper deference. The BIA summarily rejected Judge Bryant's credibility determination and failed to provide an adequate justification for its ruling. Judge Bryant set forth clear, cogent reasons for discrediting the Mayor's story. He reached a reasonable conclusion based on his observations at the hearing. 1 If the BIA wished to reverse Judge Bryant's credibility determination, it was required to set forth convincing reasons and was not free to simply reject Judge Bryant's findings. 22 The record surrounding the Mayor's allegedly forged affidavits gives us further reason to support Judge Bryant's findings. The Mayor first filed an affidavit in 1989 stating that he did not remember the details of Mayo's marriage. In 1991, the Mayor filed a second affidavit. In the second affidavit, the Mayor recounted details about Mayo's marriage ceremony and said he issued Mayo's marriage license before he conducted her ceremony. Mayo's attorney questioned the authenticity of the Mayor's signature on the second affidavit. The Mayor responded by filing a Certification verifying that the signature on the second affidavit was his own. 23 To resolve the dispute over the Mayor's signature, Judge Bryant heard testimony from a number of experts. Mayo's expert testified that the 1991 affidavit contained a forged signature. The expert also questioned the validity of the Mayor's signature on the Certification. Similarly, Mr. Leopoldo Merza, the Civil Registrar of Infanta, testified that the documents were not authentic because he had never seen such a signature by the Mayor. The INS's expert, on the other hand, testified that it was impossible to know if the signatures were authentic. Gil Valencia, an INS examiner, also testified for the INS. He told the court that the Mayor's signature was authentic because he personally obtained it while in the Philippines. 24 Judge Bryant ultimately found the contents of the Mayor's affidavits were unreliable. He said the record made it impossible to tell whether the affidavits were authentic. The BIA, on the other hand, said the dispute over the Mayor's affidavit does not provide an adequate reason to discredit the Mayor's testimony. We do not find the BIA's explanation sufficient. This court has examined the findings of Judge Bryant and the testimony of the experts as well as the Mayor's statements. We find, as did Judge Bryant, that there is a great deal of evidence to support the findings that the Mayor's signature was forged and was not a valid signature. We conclude, based upon this overall testimony, that the marriage was void because it was performed prior to the time that a valid marriage license was signed by the Mayor.