Opinion ID: 197951
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: General Versus Specific Facts

Text: 56 First, the IJ and the Board took notice of a generalization, without any evidence that there has been any specific diminution in the threat to this particular individual petitioner. As the majority notes, the BIA devoted the bulk of its analysis of Civil's asylum application to reciting virtually verbatim a discussion of changed country conditions set forth in an earlier opinion. 19 Ante at 55. While taking official notice of the general changes in country conditions in Haiti, the Board gave absolutely no consideration to the question whether those general conditions made any difference (much less sufficient difference) to Civil's particular situation. The Board's implicit assumption, that the particular necessarily follows from the general, is also factually inaccurate: despite the return of Aristide and then Preval to head Haiti's government, the former Ton Ton Macoutes continue to terrorize Aristide's friends and supporters. 57 As we have held, [i]n keeping with standard principles of administrative procedure and in the absence of any prohibition in the INA itself, the Board has the discretion to take 'official' or 'administrative' notice of extra-record legislative facts. Gebremichael, 10 F.3d at 37 (emphasis added) (citing 3 Kenneth C. Davis & John P. Wilson, Administrative Law Treatise § 15, at 132-217 (2d ed. 1980) (Administrative Law Treatise )). Legislative facts are those which 'do not usually concern the immediate parties but are the general facts which help the tribunal decide questions of law and policy and discretion.'  Id. at 37 n. 25 (quoting 2 Administrative Law Treatise § 12:3, at 413). Thus, the Board is free to take official notice of facts such as a change in government in an applicant's home country. Id. at 37. 58 In contrast, 'adjudicative facts usually answer the questions of who did what, where, when, how, why, with what motive or intent.'  Id. at 37 n. 25 (quoting Administrative Law Treatise § 12:3, at 413). These more particularized facts pertaining to the individual parties are not the kind of facts of which the agency may take official notice. Yet that is exactly what the Board would have to do in order to have made a proper determination in the instant case. 59 As a matter of law, it is not enough for the Board to find, as an officially noticed fact, that Aristide was restored to power and therefore that the general country conditions in Haiti had changed. 20 A change in government cannot, without more, support a denial of political asylum. The Board must find, based upon substantial evidence, that the change has actually resulted in an elimination or reduction of persecution of the particular applicant for asylum, or of persons similarly situated; an applicant is entitled to careful, individualized consideration of such evidence in the context of the applicant's claims. See Llana-Castellon v. INS, 16 F.3d 1093, 1096, 1098 (10th Cir.1994) (remanding to BIA a denial of asylum based upon a rote finding of changed country conditions); see Rhoa-Zamora v. INS, 971 F.2d 26, 34 (7th Cir.1992). As the Tenth Circuit cogently stated, 60 The use of official notice [of changed country conditions] does not substitute for an analysis of the facts of each applicant's individual circumstances. Uncontroverted facts may be inapplicable to or of limited probative value in individual cases and the Board must remain open to this possibility. The petitioners are therefore right to demand that the BIA engage in a careful, individualized review of the evidence presented in their applications and hearings. 61 Llana-Castellon, 16 F.3d at 1098 (quoting Kaczmarczyk v. INS, 933 F.2d 588, 594-95 (7th Cir.1991)). The court found that the Board there (as here) inferred a de facto change in country conditions from a merely de jure change in government, and failed to consider that the government does not enjoy full control and that anti-government groups are still a force to be reckoned with. Id. at 1097; Castillo-Villagra v. INS, 972 F.2d 1017 (9th Cir.1992) (Although the Board may take administrative notice of the fact of a change in government, it may not, without a hearing, conclude that the change has eliminated the danger to the applicant.) 62 We reached the same conclusion only last month. In Fergiste, we held: 63 [T]he Board's administrative notice of changed country conditions did not suffice to show that [the petitioner] himself no longer had a reasonable fear of future persecution. Abstract changed country conditions do not automatically trump the specific evidence presented by the applicant. Rather, changes in country conditions must be shown to have negated the particular applicant's well-founded fear of persecution. 64 138 F.3d at 19-20 (emphasis added, footnote omitted); see 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(1)(i). In Fergiste, referring to some of the same reports that Civil points to here, we found that political assassinations and intimidation of Aristide supporters persist[ed] after the September 1994 return of Aristide to power. 138 F.3d at 19. There, we noted that, although the petitioner presented hundreds of pages of documentary evidence that either contradicted the Board's conclusions or placed them into question[,] ... the Board mentioned none of them in its analysis, nor did it discuss how or whether [the petitioner's] particular situation may be affected by the changed country conditions that it recognized. 21 138 F.3d at 19. 65 Similarly, here, the question the Board should have answered was whether Civil in particular had a well-founded fear of persecution. Neither the Board nor the IJ did anything whatsoever to ascertain whether the general political change in Haiti made any difference to Civil's well-founded fear of persecution from the Ton Ton Macoutes and their sympathizers. 66 If, in the instant case, the Board or IJ had made any effort to look into this question, they would have found an abundance of evidence supporting Civil's claim that she still had reason to fear persecution. As discussed supra, despite the change at the top of the government in Haiti, members of the police force and civilian former Ton Ton Macoutes continued to prowl the country intimidating, torturing and killing Aristide supporters and their families. In short, the deadly battle for control of Haiti continued to be waged even after the general changes occurred at the top of the government. The Board's failure even to ask the particular question of Civil's personal well-founded fear of persecution, i.e., the Board's leaping to the conclusion of denying her petition simply based upon the general change in country condition, was erroneous as a matter of law and should be reversed. It is not a legislative fact of which the Board was permitted to take official notice, nor did the Board make any attempt to determine objectively a particularized finding based on such fact. It was particularly unfair for the IJ to base his decision on changed country conditions stated in excerpts of the U.S. State Department Country Reports on Haiti, and then to ignore the voluminous documentary evidence presented by Civil in support of her case. She offered reports of reputable, objective organizations, including some from the State Department and INS itself, attesting to the fact that the change at the top did not automatically free individual Aristide supporters from persecution. The IJ should not have drawn the conclusions he did from his official notice, without considering evidence in the record to the contrary. 67 The Board, too, relied not only on the same general conditions on which the IJ relied, but took official notice itself of additional changes in the Haitian government, notably the election of Rene Preval to succeed Aristide. Like the IJ, the Board relied on the general to overcome Civil's showing of specific facts on the particular, while giving her no opportunity to rebut or to demonstrate that the general country conditions did not allay her well-founded fears. Moreover, on their face, the Board's general facts are not sufficient to support its conclusion that the persecution of Aristide supporters actually diminished. The Board stated that the rise to power by democratic forces, and the significant efforts made to dismantle the former military structures, have a direct impact on asylum claims from Haiti. (Emphasis added.) Similarly, the IJ relied on recent developments in Haiti as provid[ing] a basis for hope that conditions in the country soon might improve. (Emphasis added.) The fact that significant efforts are being made to dismantle the former military structures and to prevent further atrocities against Aristide's supporters does not mean that those efforts are successful. The question that the Board was required to answer was whether this particular individual had a well-founded fear of persecution, not whether, in general, there was any hope that conditions in Haiti might improve or whether significant efforts were being made to protect people like her. 68 As in Fergiste, the Board majority's reliance on official notice of generalized changed country conditions, instead of a particularized finding as to this individual petitioner, constitutes legal error [which] undermines the Board's decision. 138 F.3d at 18. Viewing the record as a whole, including evidence on both sides of the question, the record does not contain substantial evidence to support the Board's implicit conclusion that the changes in general country conditions meant that Civil's fear of persecution is not well-founded. The Board's decision should be reversed, and the case remanded for the IJ to determine whether Civil is entitled to asylum as a matter of the discretion of the Attorney General. Fergiste, 138 F.3d at 19-20; see 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1) (granting discretion to the Attorney General).