Opinion ID: 795246
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Guo's Testimony About His Wife's Alleged Sterilization

Text: 38 Guo contends that the IJ's finding that he failed to testify in 1992 about his wife's alleged forced sterilization is not supported by substantial evidence because the record of the 1992 hearing, which is extremely confusing and incomplete, ... indicates that [Guo] actually attempted to provide [such] testimony. Br. of Pet'r at 16. In particular, Guo asserts that he attempted to provide testimony about his wife's alleged sterilization, but the IJ at the 1992 hearing repeatedly intervened during his testimony or stopped him before he answered certain pertinent questions. See id. at 17-18. 39 There is some evidence in the record that supports Guo's position. During direct examination, after Guo testified that he had problems with Chinese authorities [b]ecause of ... of the birth control and the fact that I had a third child and they wanted to arrest me, Tr. of Asylum Hr'g, Mar. 25, 1992, at 25 (ellipsis in original), Guo's counsel asked: 40 What I'm ... what I'm trying to clear up for the ... for everybody's understanding, were the Chinese authorities giving you trouble because you had a third child or were they giving you trouble because your wife . . . . 41 Id. at 25-26 (ellipses in original). Before Guo could answer, the IJ stated, Well, I think that's what [he] said. Id. at 26. The IJ then summarized Guo's prior testimony as indicat[ing] the Chinese authorities wanted to arrest him because he had a third child in violation of the birth control policy. Id. Guo was not given an opportunity to answer the question that his counsel had posed. The IJ also interrupted Guo or his counsel several more times during direct examination, see id. at 27, 30-31, and Guo—who seemed to be attempting to understand what was being said through an interpreter—appeared to become increasingly confused, see, e.g., id. at 31 (IJ: Sir, was your last response yes or no or what? Guo: Or what yes or no? No, no. What ... what's the question? (ellipsis in original)). 42 We are troubled by the IJ's repeated interruption of Guo and his counsel. We think it possible that the interruptions may have affected Guo's ability to present complete and cogent testimony. 8 Reviewing the hearing transcript as a whole, however, we cannot say that any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude, Diallo v. Gonzales, 445 F.3d 624, 628 (2d Cir.2006) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), that Guo attempted to testify that his wife had been forcibly sterilized. We therefore conclude that the IJ's finding in 1999 that Guo had not so testified at his first hearing is supported by substantial evidence. 43 That the IJ's finding in 1999 that Guo failed to testify at his 1992 hearing about his wife's alleged forced sterilization is supported by substantial evidence does not mean, however, that the IJ's adverse credibility determination in 1999 is necessarily supported by substantial evidence too. As an initial matter, we note that Guo was never asked at his 1992 hearing whether his wife had been forcibly sterilized, nor was he directly asked any other question the natural response to which would have been to tell the IJ what happened to his wife. We think it relevant in this regard that it was not until 1997 that the BIA recognized the forced sterilization of one's spouse as a valid ground for asylum. See In re C____Y____Z____, 21 I. & N. Dec. 915, 918 (BIA 1997); Shi Liang Lin v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 416 F.3d 184, 187-88 (2d Cir.2005). There is at least the possibility, therefore, that if Guo failed to testify about any such event, he did so because he focused his testimony on what had happened to him, not on what had happened to his wife. 9 44 Notwithstanding the problematic nature of finding an asylum applicant incredible for failing to make allegations that would have been legally irrelevant if made, we recently concluded, in a similar context, that it was not error or flawed reasoning for the IJ or BIA to ground their adverse credibility determinations on [the petitioner]'s failure to mention his wife's sterilization in an application for asylum filed before 1997. Cheng Tong Wang v. Gonzales, 449 F.3d 451, 454 (2d Cir.2006) (per curiam). We stated that because the basis for [the petitioner]'s original asylum claim [was] opposition to China's family planning program, the omission was material to [the petitioner's] claim for asylum irrespective of whether it predated the 1997 change in the law. Id. (emphasis omitted). 10 We therefore denied the petition for review. Id. 45 We think that the circumstances of this case require a different result. We do not read Cheng Tong Wang to establish a categorical rule that substantial evidence supports an adverse credibility finding in all cases where an applicant for asylum fails to allege, before the BIA's In re C____Y____Z____ decision, that his spouse was forcibly sterilized, and then subsequently makes such an allegation. Rather, we emphasized in Cheng Tong Wang that the petitioner there had failed to mention his wife's alleged sterilization in his original asylum application, which asked the petitioner, inter alia, `whether he or any member of [his] immediate family, [has] ever been mistreated by the authorities of [his] home country. ' Id. at 453 (quoting BIA order) (third alteration added; emphasis in original). The petitioner had therefore, in effect, denied that his wife had ever been mistreated. Here, Guo's original asylum application is missing, so we have no way to determine whether Guo alleged in his original application for asylum that his wife had been forcibly sterilized. But in his January 1993 asylum application—filed long before the BIA's In re C____Y____Z____ decision—Guo did allege that his wife had been forcibly sterilized in response to substantially the same question as that asked in Cheng Tong Wang: Have you or any member of your family[] ever been mistreated/threatened by the authorities of your home country ... ? Request for Asylum, dated Dec. 27, 1992, at 3. 11 If, as was the case in his January 1993 asylum application, Guo stated in his original asylum application, in response to a specific question about whether members of his family had been mistreated, that his wife had been forcibly sterilized, it would hardly reflect poorly on his credibility that he did not reiterate this allegation at his 1992 hearing, during the course of which he was not asked a similar question, at a time when the allegation would have been legally irrelevant. 46 In light of the record as a whole, we conclude that the IJ's adverse credibility determination is not supported by substantial evidence. We therefore grant the petition and remand the case for a new hearing at which an IJ may evaluate Guo's claims without placing undue weight on an apparent inconsistency that cannot be properly evaluated on the current record. 12 We express no opinion on the ultimate merits of Guo's application for asylum and withholding or his credibility.