Opinion ID: 787177
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Establishing refugee status

Text: 83 To prevail in his asylum claim, Lin must show that he qualifies as a refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42) by establishing that (1) he has been a victim of persecution, (2) he is a member of a protected group, (3) his protected group status is known to or imputed by the persecutors, and (4) the ensuing persecution is on account of this status. Popova v. INS, 273 F.3d 1251, 1257 (9th Cir.2001). Protected group status under § 1101(a)(42) may include race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. 84 His counsel's argument at the hearing that Lin qualified as a refugee, to the extent that it was discernible, was conclusory. Her legal argument on behalf of Lin on direct appeal was predicated only on a newly raised claim, presented without evidence or reference to the governing statute, that if returned to China he would be punished for fleeing the country. In his ineffective assistance of counsel claim, Lin asserts two bases for a conclusion that he has refugee status: that he faces persecution on account of his membership in a social group consisting of his nuclear family, and that his parents' political opinions regarding family planning are imputed to him. 85 a. Family membership as a basis for protected social group refugee status: Lin claims his nuclear family was persecuted in China as a result of his parents' resistance to the mandatory limits on procreation. The BIA has held in Matter of Acosta, 19 I. & N. Dec. 211, 232, 1985 WL 56042 (BIA 1985), that a family may qualify as a social group under § 1101: 86 [P]ersecution that is directed toward an individual who is a member of a group of persons all of whom share a common, immutable characteristic ... such as sex, color, or kinship ties, ... [will only qualify under § 1101 when] the common characteristic that defines the group [is] one that the members of the group either cannot change, or should not be required to change because it is fundamental to their individual identities or consciences. 87 (emphasis added). As lucidly explained in Hernandez-Montiel v. INS, 225 F.3d 1084, 1092 (9th Cir.2000), the 88 First, Third, and Seventh Circuits have adopted Acosta's immutability analysis. See Ananeh-Firempong v. INS, 766 F.2d 621, 626 (1st Cir.1985) (recognizing Acosta in determining that family relations can be the basis of a particular social group); Fatin [ v. INS ], 12 F.3d [1233, 1239-41 (3d Cir.1993)] (noting that the subgroup of Iranian feminists who refuse to conform to the government's gender-specific laws and social norms could satisfy the statutory concept of particular social group) (internal quotation marks omitted); Lwin v. INS, 144 F.3d 505, 511-12 (7th Cir.1998) (recognizing parents of Burmese student dissidents as part of a social group because they share a common, immutable characteristic). 89 Like our sister circuits, we recognize that a family is a social group. Sanchez-Trujillo v. INS, 801 F.2d 1571, 1576 (9th Cir.1986) (Perhaps a prototypical example of a `particular social group' would consist of the immediate members of a certain family, the family being a focus of fundamental affiliational concerns and common interests for most people.); accord Iliev v. INS, 127 F.3d 638, 642 & n. 4 (7th Cir.1997) (citing Sanchez-Trujillo and concluding a family constitutes a cognizable `particular social group' within the meaning of the law), Gebremichael v. INS, 10 F.3d 28, 36 (1st Cir.1993) (citing Ravindran v. INS, 976 F.2d 754, 761 n. 5 (1st Cir.1992)) (explicitly adopting Sanchez-Trujillo formulation). But unlike them, we do not automatically confer social group status on the family for the purposes of § 1101. See Estrada-Posadas v. United States INS, 924 F.2d 916, 919 (9th Cir.1991) (rejecting petition of Guatemalan woman where refugee status was based on sole ground that her maternal uncle and cousin had suffered persecution). 90 Rather, our circuit recognizes that some attenuated family links will not per se suffice to confer particular social group membership. Compare id. (finding no evidence that the petitioner had been persecuted at all, or that she lived with her persecuted family members, or was otherwise readily identifiable as a member of their family unit) and Arriaga-Barrientos v. U.S. INS, 937 F.2d 411, 414 (9th Cir.1991) (The abduction of two geographically distant brothers by unknown gunmen for unknown reasons does not establish a well-founded fear.) with Mgoian v. INS, 184 F.3d 1029, 1036 (9th Cir.1999) (granting asylum petition and noting it should now be clear that a pattern of persecution targeting a given family that plays a prominent role in a minority group that is the object of widespread hostile treatment supports a well-founded fear of persecution by its surviving members) (emphasis added). 91 Arriaga-Barrientos clarifies that, where family membership is concerned, acts of violence against a petitioner's friends or family members may establish a well-founded fear, notwithstanding an utter lack of persecution against the petitioner herself, where the pattern of violence is closely tied to the petitioner. 937 F.2d at 414. In practice, where family membership is proposed as the particular social group status supporting a claim of refugee status, this prong of the test melds with the on account of prong. Where family membership is a sufficiently strong and discernible bond that it becomes the foreseeable basis for personal persecution, the family qualifies as a social group. Where it is not plausibly the basis for such persecution, it will not matter whether the family is a social group or not because refugee status will be denied on the on account of prong in any event. 92 We hold that Lin thus had a plausible claim for refugee status as a member of a particular social group — his immediate family — if he could demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution on account of that status and that it was prejudiced by counsel's ineffective assistance. See Jimenez-Marmolejo, 104 F.3d at 1086. 93 The expanded record suggests that the Chinese government was inclined to go to extraordinary lengths to punish Lin's family, that it had identified him personally and directed at least some part of the punishment at him personally, that Lin was separated from his parents as a child as a result of this government activity, that he was threatened personally when his mother's house was ransacked, and that he was in personal danger of further punishment on account of his family status if he returned to China. 9 The government argues that Lin was not prejudiced on direct appeal because the BIA had been presented all of the facts regarding Lin's personal experience of persecution and basically the same claims[were] presented in Lin's motion to reopen before the court and in his brief. It notes that his counsel did manage to present the arguments that Lin established persecution because when he couldn't pay the fine, he couldn't go to school, and that Lin's family suffered persecution because of their violation of the family planning policy. 94 We acknowledge that counsel did present some of the factual basis of Lin's claim. But the presentation of a few bare facts, without documentation and without the factual context that gives them meaning or the analytical context that gives them their power, does not suffice to place the critical issues squarely before the tribunal that must consider them. See Tri-Valley Packing Ass'n v. FTC, 329 F.2d 694, 704 (9th Cir.1964) (attributing failure of administrative commission to address party's argument to fact that while party presented the factual basis upon which this argument is made, it did no more than suggest the legal question which it now urges). The facts supporting Lin's claim were either absent from the record before the IJ and BIA on direct appeal or were presented in a conclusory fashion, bare of support and analytical context. Only with the motion to reopen — containing both the necessary analysis and the critical evidence from Zheng's affidavit about her own history and the prospect that Lin would personally be subject to penalties — was the proper context for Lin's claim of prospective persecution presented to the BIA. 95 The expanded record attached to the motion to reopen shows that Lin's claim could have been competently presented. The BIA's assertion that there was no material difference between the product of counsel's ineffective assistance and that provided by Lin's current pro bono counsel suggests that it has not yet considered the record assembled by competent counsel. Counsel's utter failure to discover facts and present supporting legal analysis thus clearly prejudiced Lin. 96 b. Refugee status via imputed political opinion : Aside from Lin's membership in his nuclear family, the particular basis of his family's persecution may justify his refugee status. Congress has made plain that the forced sterilization of Zheng, if it occurred, constitutes persecution by the terms of 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(B), which states in pertinent part that: 97 For purposes of determinations under this Act, a person who has been forced to abort a pregnancy or to undergo involuntary sterilization, or who has been persecuted for failure or refusal to undergo such a procedure or for other resistance to a coercive population control program, shall be deemed to have been persecuted on account of political opinion, and a person who has a well founded fear that he or she will be forced to undergo such a procedure or subject to persecution for such failure, refusal, or resistance shall be deemed to have a well founded fear of persecution on account of political opinion. 98 Zheng's forced sterilization qualifies under the first clause of this subsection. This persecution can be imputed to Lin's father, whose reproductive opportunities the law considers to be bound up with those of his wife. See He v. Ashcroft, 328 F.3d 593, 604 (9th Cir.2003). He cites CYZ as follows: 99 the applicant in this case has established eligibility for asylum by virtue of his wife's forced sterilization. This position is not in dispute, for the Service conceded in its appeal brief that the spouse of a woman who has been forced to undergo an abortion or sterilization procedure can thereby establish past persecution. Cf. Matter of Kasinga, Interim Decision 3278, 1996 WL 379826 (BIA 1996). 100 Inasmuch as the applicant has adequately established that he suffered past persecution, there is a regulatory presumption that he has a well-founded fear of future persecution under 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(1) (1997). We reject the Service's assertion that an alien who has established past persecution has an additional burden of establishing a well-founded fear of future persecution by demonstrating that the involuntary sterilization was carried out in such a way as to amount to an atrocious form of persecution. There is no additional burden of this nature, either by regulation or by statute. The applicant need not demonstrate compelling reasons for being unwilling to return resulting from the severity of the past persecution unless the presumption under 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(1)(I) has been rebutted by the Service. 101 21 I. & N. Dec. at 919-20. 102 As the BIA notes in its opinion, it has not addressed whether this persecution on account of political opinion can be imputed to the children of such parents. However, the logic of CYZ may provide a basis for that result. The operative language in § 1101(a)(42) deems a person persecuted on account of political opinion if he is persecuted for failure or refusal to undergo such a procedure or for other resistance to a coercive population control program; it does not say that that failure or refusal or resistance must have been his own. The discrimination or abusive treatment of children in families with more than one child may qualify them for refugee status. In her concurring opinion in CYZ, Board Member Rosenberg makes just this point: 103 An individual's own refusal or failure to comply with a compulsory population control program, or his or her association with one who expressly resists or opposes such a program, may cause such a political opinion to be imputed to that individual.... [T]hat individual has a reasonable fear of persecution even if he, himself, was not persecuted at all or as severely as the victim whose views are imputed to him. There is nothing in the doctrine of imputed political opinion, and indeed, it is somewhat antithetical to the doctrine, to suggest that it is only available when the persecuted victim whose views are imputed to the applicant also is applying for asylum. 104 21 I. & N. Dec. at 922-23 (emphasis added). 105 By this reckoning, Lin's parents' deliberate flouting of state mandatory limits on procreation has put Lin at risk. His mother's misfortune is deemed to be past persecution on account of political opinion; this is in turn imputed to Lin's father as a matter of law, whether or not he had ever actually expressed such an opinion or experienced such persecution directly. It is not clear that Lin is any less in association with his mother in this respect than is his father; the doctrine of imputed political opinion may offer no crisp method for distinguishing them. 106 We need not, and cannot decide these issues today. We conclude merely that Lin has a plausible claim for relief. See Jimenez-Marmolejo, 104 F.3d at 1086. His counsel's negligence in failing to discover and present the fact of Zheng's forced sterilization before the IJ, and in failing to present more than a bald, unsupported assertion to the BIA, foreclosed Lin's opportunity to raise this issue to the BIA or to us. Lin would have been well-situated to bring a case testing whether past persecution on account of political opinion established by forced sterilization of the mother may be imputed to her children as well as to her spouse.