Opinion ID: 3030779
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Mohamed’s First Motion

Text: After the BIA denied her appeal, Mohamed hired a new attorney who filed a motion to reconsider and remand. The motion asked the BIA to reconsider on the ground that Mohamed feared that she would be subjected to genital mutilation should she be returned to Somalia.2 It stated that over ninety-eight percent of women in Somalia are subjected to such mutilation,3 that Mohamed’s first attorney did not raise the issue at the hearing or on appeal, and that Mohamed had not yet been genitally mutilated. The last assertion — that Mohamed had not yet been mutilated — was directly contra- 2 We note that many courts and the BIA refer to the practice at issue here as FGM. We see no need for using initials rather than the full three word phrase. We are short neither of paper nor of ink. The use of initials, if it has any effect, serves only to dull the senses and minimize the barbaric nature of the practice. The further bureaucratization of the language would serve no useful purpose here. We refer to the custom however, because the initials rather than the words appear occasionally in this opinion when quoting portions of other decisions. 3 To support this statement, the motion cited “Exhibit C.” No such attachment appears in the certified administrative record. According to the record, Mohamed’s second motion, discussed below, did include an Exhibit C — a report from the World Health Organization on female genital mutilation, stating that ninety-eight percent of the women in Somalia are subjected to the practice. MOHAMMED v. GONZALES 3069 dicted by the attached physician’s report, which stated that the “patient recollects having clitoris cut off with scissors at young age,” and is “absent” a “clitoris” and a “prepuce.” Also attached to the motion was a letter from Mohamed’s prior counsel, in which she admitted that she failed to ask her minor client whether she had been subjected to genital mutilation and did not consider raising it as part of the asylum claim, although she believed that such treatment was “clearly past persecution” (and although the State Department reports contained in the record of the hearing stated that “virtually all” Somalian women were victims of that practice). In its opposition, the government argued, first, that Mohamed’s motion did not qualify as a motion to reconsider, because it did not specify errors of fact or law in the prior decision. Second, it contended that Mohamed did not comply with the requirements for a motion to remand for consideration of new evidence because she sought to introduce evidence that could have been presented at the hearing. Finally, it argued that, to the extent Mohamed sought to reopen on the ground of ineffective assistance of counsel, she failed to comply with the BIA’s procedural requirements set forth in Matter of Lozada, 19 I. & N. Dec. 637 (BIA 1988). Mohamed filed a response to the government’s opposition stating that she had complied with Lozada. Additionally, she attached a declaration and a copy of a complaint form that she had previously sent to the State Bar of California. The documents stated that Mohamed had already been subjected to female genital mutilation, and made clear that she sought to claim asylum, withholding, and protection under CAT on the basis of this past experience. In her declaration Mohamed wrote: “I then hired a new attorney . . . where I learned that my subjection to female genital mutilation constituted past persecution and torture.” Similarly, on the State Bar of California complaint form, Mohamed alleged that her first attorney “[f]ailed to raise issue of past persecution on account of female genital mutilation.” The government requested that the 3070 MOHAMMED v. GONZALES BIA allow additional time for Mohamed’s first counsel to respond to her allegations, although her response was attached to the motion. One month later, the BIA issued a decision rife with errors and inconsistencies. The last paragraph of the decision was the only portion that addressed Mohamed’s motion. There, the BIA appears to have properly construed the motion as a motion to reopen. It found, however, that the “request for reopening fails notwithstanding her ineffective assistance of counsel claim” because “no evidence was presented with the motion that establishes that [female genital mutilation] would likely be performed . . . in the future.” Yet, the BIA then inexplicably concluded its opinion by “find[ing] that the new evidence therefore does likely change the result of these proceedings.” (emphasis added). Mohamed petitioned for review of the BIA’s denial of her motion.4