Opinion ID: 3019635
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Surrendering or resisting the cadres.

Text: The IJ noted that petitioner “specifically stated to the Court that she voluntarily surrendered to the cadres to gain the freedom of her mother-in-law, who was in custody” though at another point she said she was “taken away involuntarily and was 6 resisting the cadres.” The IJ misconstrued the petitioner’s testimony. The record reveals that petitioner testified that she voluntarily went to the health center to have the abortion so that the government would release her mother-in-law. App. 137. However, petitioner testified that she resisted once she was in the room where the abortion was performed. App. 174. The asserted “inconsistency” simply does not exist. 2. Petitioner’s reason for coming to the United States. Petitioner told the asylum officer that she had come to the United States to be with her husband. App. 46. The IJ observed that “[i]f indeed the respondent had come to the United States to avoid persecution, in the considered opinion of this Court, that would have been her immediate response to the asylum officer.” Petitioner’s husband had been in the United States before petitioner arrived in this country. On its face, her response to the asylum officer was perfectly understandable and could have been expected. The IJ’s feeling that her response was unreasonable is contrary to the motivations of ordinary people. Her answer does not support a finding of falsehood. 3. The petitioner’s statement that she had not been persecuted. App. 46. The IJ noted that Chen first told the asylum officer that she had not been persecuted and it was only after the translator “interjected him or herself into this 7 interview . . . that the respondent answered that she was persecuted.” App. 46. This seems to be a clear case of misconstruing the record. The asylum officer’s notes suggest that, although petitioner initially stated that she had not been persecuted, her translator immediately clarified for the asylum officer that the question was unclear to petitioner and needed to be rephrased. The asylum officer did so and petitioner clarified that she was persecuted in China. It is not as though petitioner had said that there had been no persecution and sometime later asserted the opposite. Petitioner explained the confusion to the IJ. She testified that she initially thought that the asylum officer was asking about whether she had been persecuted in 1999, but revised her answer as soon as she understood the question to be about her experience in China. The IJ concluded that the petitioner’s explanation “makes absolutely no sense to the Court, since the respondent was in the United States, according to her testimony, since January of 1999.” App. 46. To the contrary, the petitioner’s explanation was clear and the IJ’s comment leaves us at a loss. 4. Date of abortion and date of mother-in-law’s arrest. The IJ noted that petitioner testified that the abortion occurred in 1992, but the asylum officer’s notes say that she said it occurred in 1993. Further, the IJ noted that her medical history report, taken at the time of her admission to New York University hospital in December 1999, originally stated that she had an abortion in 1995 and that this abortion occurred at eight weeks, not four months. The correction in the hospital record 8 was made fifteen months after the initial notation on the chart and six days before the chart was presented in court. App. 50. Moreover, the alleged contradictions were in the handwritten notes of third parties as compared to the petitioner’s testimony on the record. Petitioner did not present contradictory testimony before the IJ with respect to the date of the abortion. The IJ erroneously stated that petitioner first testified that she was arrested and taken for a forced abortion on December 1, 1992 and then changed her story to state that it was on December 8, 1992. App. 49. The record, however, shows that this alleged “inconsistency” is erroneous. Petitioner never stated that the abortion occurred on December 1 and only referred to December 8. App. 134-36. In addition, even if petitioner had contradicted herself as to the date of her abortion during her testimony before the IJ, the date is not material to her asylum claim. Rather the material fact is whether she had a forced abortion during her life in China - a fact that was uncontradicted. See Cham v. Attorney General, 445 F.3d 683, 691-92 (3d Cir. 2006) (“discrepancies” of a few months or a year with respect to relevant events were immaterial); Fiadjoe v. Attorney General, 411 F.3d 135, 156 (3d Cir. 2005) (“[t]he inability [of the petitioner] to recall during the stress of the hearing that the year of return [to the house of her father who abused her] was 1989 does not affect credibility.”). In addition to the alleged inconsistency as to the date of her forced abortion, IJ Ferlise concluded that petitioner testified that the government came to arrest her mother-in-law on October 1, 1992 and then said that this occurred on December 1, 1992. 9 App. 48. This “alleged inconsistency” is another instance of a clearly harmless, immediately corrected, misstatement. In her first response to the question, petitioner stated that the arrest occurred on December 1, 1992. App. 136. Later, she stated that it occurred October 1, 1992, but immediately corrected herself. App. 172. This second discussion of the date of the arrest immediately followed a discussion of whether petitioner looked pregnant when she was married on October 1, 1992. She, in fact, stated, “December. It’s not October. You confused me.” App. 172. 5. Name of her husband’s cousin. The IJ emphasized that petitioner did not know the name of the cousin with whom her husband stayed in Shanghai while he was in hiding in 1992. This is entirely irrelevant to her claim that she had a forced abortion. Moreover, there is no indication that petitioner knew all of her husband’s cousins. 6. Chinese government’s knowledge that petitioner was pregnant. The IJ questioned how the Chinese government could have known that petitioner was pregnant if, as she testified, she was not showing when she was arrested and forced to have an abortion. App. 170-71. The IJ ignored the petitioner’s plausible suggestion that her doctor might have informed the government. App. 170-72. The alleged “inconsistencies” in the petitioner’s testimony, many of which are the product of misconstruction and exaggeration by the IJ do not provide substantial evidence to support his adverse credibility finding. 10 7. Date of departure from home village. The IJ also noted that Chen initially testified that she left her home village on January 15, 1992, but subsequently stated that she left her village on January 15, 1999. Chen did testify that she left her village in 1992, but immediately corrected herself to state that she left in 1999. App. 181-82. 8. Chen’s arrival in the United States. Finally, the IJ focused on a few alleged inconsistencies regarding Chen’s arrival in the United States. First, Chen testified before the IJ that she arrived in the United States in Newark, New Jersey and had her passport stamped there. The Asylum Officer, however, recorded that she stopped first in Seattle before arriving in Newark. Judge Ferlise took judicial notice that all passengers on flights into the United States are inspected at first port of entry. Second, According to the Asylum Officer’s notes, Chen