Opinion ID: 3040698
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Inconsistent Hiring Date of the Cook

Text: The IJ primarily relied upon the inconsistency in the hiring date of Moorthi, the cook, to support his adverse credibility determination. However, discrepancies as to Moorthi’s hiring date do not go to the heart of Don’s asylum claim because the key event triggering Don’s persecution by the LTTE and the 2 The majority accuses the dissent of “reweighing” the evidence. I agree that reweighing the evidence would be improper; however, it is quite proper to review the entire record, including evidence admitted by the IJ, such as the newspaper article and Don’s business license demonstrating the truth of his testimony, in applying the proper legal standard. DON v. GONZALES 1629 TDB was Moorthi’s arrest in January 2000, not the date he was hired, which was four years earlier. Before Moorthi’s arrest, Don had no inkling of Moorthi’s alleged involvement with the LTTE. As the IJ himself states: Neither of the two adult respondents had any political activity, were never arrested and never physically harmed or mentally abused. There may have been some mental fear in there but the truth is that they had nothing to fear at before an event in January 2000. Thus, it was only after Moorthi was arrested that Don’s troubles with the LTTE and the TDB began, as the IJ seems to recognize. One week after Moorthi was arrested and charged, the LTTE stopped Don’s car and threatened him with injury if he did not get the cook released from custody. The LTTE also stated in a threatening phone call that it knew Don was the one who reported Moorthi to the police, and that he and his family would suffer the penalty of death for his betrayal. Aware of the LTTE’s lethal reputation, and afraid for his life and the lives of his family, Don responded that he would try to free Moorthi. Don contacted some people he knew in the local police, but was unable to get Moorthi released. After receiving threatening phone calls from the LTTE twice a week for several weeks, Don moved in with friends. However, his wife remained at home and continued to receive calls from the LTTE, who threatened to kill Don if Moorthi was not released. Two months after Moorthi’s arrest, the TDB came to Don’s house and told his wife that Don should come to the TDB headquarters for questioning. Because Don was afraid of the TDB, he did not go to the TDB headquarters, but rather reported what had happened to the local police at the Colombo police headquarters, accompanied by his wife’s brother-in-law, who was a policeman. On the advice of 1630 DON v. GONZALES friends, Don told the police that the cook had only worked for him for a short period of time, fearing that if he revealed that the cook had worked for him for several years, he would be in even more danger because the police might suspect that he, too, was affiliated with the LTTE. Don and his wife then went to stay at his sister’s house, 125 miles away from his home. Despite the IJ’s contrary finding, it can reasonably be inferred that both the LTTE and the TDB came to Don’s home. Some “unknown” persons suspected to be affiliated with the LTTE stoned Don’s house and hung around his restaurant. Meanwhile, neighbors reported that the TDB surrounded his house to arrest him, and then questioned his father about his whereabouts. Six months after the cook was arrested, Don obtained tourist visas from the United States Embassy and fled Sri Lanka. At his March 12, 2002 hearing before the IJ, Don testified that in a previous interview with an asylum officer, he had not correctly remembered the date Moorthi was hired. Why would he? Hiring the cook was not a significant event among the series of events leading to his petition for asylum. Yet, the IJ seized upon the discrepancy between hiring dates told to the Sri Lankan police, the asylum officer, and the IJ, to find Don not credible: It seems to me a simple factor to state as to when it was that this man who was the source of him having to flee his country started to work for him. But for some reason he has not been able to be consistent with that particular fact. Therefore, I do not make a positive credibility finding for him . . . . One can hardly imagine a “discrepanc[y]” that goes less to the heart of Don’s asylum claim than this one. Chen v. Ashcroft, 362 F.3d 611, 617 (9th Cir. 2004). “Minor inconsistencies that reveal nothing about an asylum applicant’s fear for his safety are not an adequate basis for an adverse credibility finding.” Osorio v. INS, 99 F.3d 928, 931 (9th Cir. 1996) DON v. GONZALES 1631 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). While the substantial evidence standard is deferential, the IJ must point to a “specific and cogent” reason supporting an adverse credibility finding, Alvarez-Santos v. INS, 332 F.3d 1245, 1254 (9th Cir. 2003), and “such reason must be substantial and bear a legitimate nexus to the finding,” Salaam v. INS, 229 F.3d 1234, 1238 (9th Cir. 2000) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, “if [a] discrepanc[y] ‘cannot be viewed as [an] attempt[ ] by the applicant to enhance his claims of persecution [it] ha[s] no bearing on credibility.’ ” Chen v. INS, 266 F.3d 1094, 1100 (9th Cir. 2001) (quoting Damaize-Job v. INS, 787 F.2d 1332, 1337 (9th Cir. 1986)), overruled on other grounds by 537 U.S. 1016 (2002), adverse credibility determination aff’d on remand, 326 F.3d 1316 (9th Cir. 2003). When compared to date inconsistencies that we previously have found inconsequential, the IJ’s legal error in finding that the hiring date discrepancy went to the heart of Don’s asylum claim is obvious. See Zheng v. Ashcroft, 397 F.3d 1139, 1147 (9th Cir. 2005) (as amended) (finding that discrepancy in date of forced abortion was a minor inconsistency); Wang v. Ashcroft, 341 F.3d 1015, 1021-22 (9th Cir. 2003) (finding that a discrepancy regarding the date on which the petitioner’s wife had received two forced abortions by the Chinese government was minor); Bandari v. INS, 227 F.3d 1160, 1166 (9th Cir. 2000) (finding that a discrepancy in the date the petitioner was beaten and arrested by police for having an inter-faith relationship did not go to the heart of the petitioner’s asylum claim); Vilorio-Lopez v. INS, 852 F.2d 1137, 1142 (9th Cir. 1988) (as amended) (holding that a discrepancy regarding the date on which the petitioners claimed they had been chased by a death squad was minor and could not serve as the basis for an adverse credibility determination); Damaize-Job, 787 F.2d at 1337 (finding that an inconsistency between the petitioner’s oral testimony and his asylum application regarding the year in which his daughter was born was “trivial” and could not support an adverse credibility determination). 1632 DON v. GONZALES Here, the IJ failed to state why the hiring date inconsistency is relevant to Don’s asylum claim or even whether it reveals anything about his fear for his safety. The hiring date of the cook had absolutely no significance to Don at the time it occurred. Don would have had no reason whatsoever to remember the hiring date, because the date only acquired any significance in the course of these asylum proceedings. Thus, it is clear that in making the adverse credibility finding, the IJ impermissibly “picked at minor memory lapses and inconsistencies on issues at the periphery of [petitioner’s] asylum claim.” Shire v. Ashcroft, 388 F.3d 1288, 1298 (9th Cir. 2004) (quoting Kebede v. Ashcroft, 366 F.3d 808, 811 (9th Cir. 2004)). Even if the date discrepancy were material to Don’s claim, “[a]n adverse credibility finding is improper when an IJ fails to address a petitioner’s explanation for a discrepancy or inconsistency,” Singh v. Gonzales, 439 F.3d 1100, 1106 (9th Cir. 2006) (quoting Kaur v. Ashcroft, 379 F.3d at 887), or when the IJ fails to “address in a reasoned manner the explanations that [petitioner] offers for these perceived inconsistencies,” Osorio, 99 F.3d at 933. See also Guo v. Ashcroft, 361 F.3d 1194, 1201 (9th Cir. 2004). The IJ failed to address Don’s plausible explanation that he lied to police in Sri Lanka regarding the cook’s hiring date because he was afraid for his life and he did not want the police to accuse him of being affiliated with the LTTE. The IJ mischaracterized Don’s rationale for lying, finding out of thin air that “it was important to him and that his best interests were at stake.” The majority compounds the IJ’s error by ignoring our circuit precedent that we do not look beyond the record, instead supplying its own speculative reasons for the IJ’s insupportable finding. The majority first speculates that the hiring date is not trivial because Don’s testimony is the only evidence in the record that the cook was in his employ at the time of the arrest. Maj. op. at 1621. The majority next questions the documentary evidence submitted by Don to corroborate his DON v. GONZALES 1633 account, and points out that the IJ in the March 12, 2002 hearing identified discrepancies in the business license issued for Don’s restaurant. Maj. op. at 1621 n.7. Only the panel majority rests on these unsupported assumptions. Neither the government nor the IJ disputes that the cook was in fact employed by Don at his restaurant on the date the police arrested him, evidence which is also detailed in a contemporaneous newspaper account of the cook’s arrest. Nor did the IJ rely on any alleged discrepancy in the business license as a basis for his decision. Quite the opposite: the IJ finds that “[i]n that year and in that month [January 2000] the respondent [Don] had a cook who worked in a restaurant owned by them and he was arrested and charged.” The IJ also finds that Don is a businessman who “owns two businesses.” Moreover, as the majority itself later discusses, the IJ admitted into evidence both the newspaper article and the business license. The majority is simply wrong to make up reasons to support the IJ’s credibility determination. Our review of an adverse credibility finding is limited to the actual reasons relied upon by the IJ in his decision. “[W]hen each of the IJ’s or BIA’s proffered reasons for an adverse credibility finding fails, we must accept a petitioner’s testimony as credible.” Kaur v. Ashcroft, 379 F.3d at 890; see also Damaize-Job, 787 F.2d at 1338 (“Because the IJ expressed no further concerns, and the only explicitly articulated reasons rested on impermissible factors, then we conclude from the IJ’s opinion that [the petitioner] was an otherwise credible witness.”). Nor does the majority explain satisfactorily why the hiring date bears a legitimate nexus to Don’s asylum claim or how the discrepancy might in any manner enhance Don’s claim of persecution. To support its departure from clear precedent, the majority mistakenly relies on Chebchoub v. INS, 257 F.3d 1038 (9th Cir. 2001), and Singh, 439 F.3d 1100. Maj. op. at 1620-21. Chebchoub, however, is inapposite because there the petitioner’s testimony about the events leading up to his departure did 1634 DON v. GONZALES go to the heart of his asylum claim. 257 F.3d at 1043. The inconsistencies at issue in Chebchoub — whether Chebchoub was arrested during a political demonstration, whether he joined a socialist opposition group during college, and whether he was active in various political groups — formed the basis for his claim of persecution on account of political opinion and imputed political opinion. Id. In addition, unlike the one inconsistency at issue here, the IJ in Chebchoub found a total of twenty-two inconsistencies. Id. at 1042. The majority’s reliance on Singh, 439 F.3d at 1108, is also misplaced given that in Singh we reversed the IJ’s adverse credibility finding. In the passage quoted by the majority, maj. op. at 1621, we discussed whether the IJ’s adverse credibility finding properly could be based upon Singh’s inability to recall whether he transported Sikh demonstrators to political rallies many times, as he initially stated, or only once or twice, as he later testified. Id. at 1108-09. Although the transportation of the demonstrators was the event which led to Singh’s arrest and beating by the Indian police, and we noted that it thus arguably went to the heart of his claim, we found that the “number of times Mr. Singh transported protestors reveals nothing about the events that caused him to fear for his safety.” Id. at 1109. We reiterated that “an inconsistency about the number of times Mr. Singh transported protesters in the past in no way taints Mr. Singh’s consistent testimony about the events that formed the heart of his asylum petition” and rejected it as a basis for the IJ’s adverse credibility determination. Id. The majority errs yet again when it characterizes the inconsistency in the hiring date of the cook as one piece in a pattern of pervasive dishonesty, reasoning that “ ‘when inconsistencies that weaken a claim for asylum are accompanied by other indications of dishonesty — such as a pattern of clear and pervasive inconsistency or contradiction — an adverse credibility determination may be supported by substantial evidence.’ ” Maj. op. at 1622 (quoting Kaur v. Gonzales, 418 F.3d 1061, DON v. GONZALES 1635 1067 (9th Cir. 2005)). This faulty logic allows the majority to go on to find Don’s account comparable with that of the petitioner in Kaur v. Gonzales, a case in which the circumstances could not be more dissimilar to those existing here. 418 F.3d at 1067. In Kaur, the petitioner completely changed both the details and the key events which formed the heart of her asylum claim, including retracting her claim that she had been raped at the hands of the Punjabi police. Id. at 1063, 1067. In addition, Kaur admitted to the IJ that she knowingly lied to an INS officer, in particular stating that she was not married, for the express purpose of ensuring that her husband could file an asylum application if hers was denied. Id. at 1066-67. Because we correctly found that these numerous and pervasive inconsistencies went to the heart of Kaur’s claim and could not be categorized as minor, we upheld the adverse credibility finding. Id. at 1067. Unlike in Kaur v. Gonzales, however, “other indications of dishonesty” do not abound in Don’s account and are not “so numerous and so blatant as to cast doubt on [his] entire story.” Id. at 1066. Because the hiring date of the cook is a minor inconsistency for which Don offered a plausible explanation, it cannot bear the weight of the IJ’s adverse credibility finding.