Opinion ID: 2610
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Merit's Hearing before IJ Iskra

Text: IJ Wayne Iskra, sitting in Arlington, Virginia, held a hearing on the merits of Ali's case on July 16, 2002. At that hearing, Ali testified about the events described in his application and responded to questions. The Government called attention to Ali's failure in 1999 to tell the INS about the abuse he claimed to have experienced in 1997 and to seeming inconsistencies in Ali's account. For example, it confronted Ali with an INS document dated August 2000 that, according to the Government, indicated that Ali told INS officials that he came to the U.S. in January 2000, not sometime in 1999, and that he arrived by boat, not by plane, as he later claimed. [3] Ali denied giving the INS this information. The Government also presented Ali with letters, purportedly written by Ali and addressed to the Guyanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., in which the author indicated that, if returned to Guyana, he would rob banks, sell crack cocaine to the Guyanese people, and blow up Guyana. Ali stated that he did not write these letters.