Opinion ID: 797143
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The voluntariness of Lin's wife's abortions

Text: 86 Most important, because central to the viability of Lin's claims in 2000, we conclude that the IJ's determination that Lin's wife's abortions must have been voluntary, rather than forced, was not supported by substantial evidence. In drawing this inference, the IJ relied on the contents of a State Department country report indicating that the issuance of abortion certificates (which Lin testified he had received but had lost) occurred only in cases of voluntary abortions. In so stating, the IJ gave no indication of the year of the country report to which he was referring. Accordingly, we must assume that he was referring to the 1999 State Department report, which was the only one included in the administrative record. But we have found no discussion of abortion certificates in this report. 87 Moreover, even if such evidence were in that report, we would think that where the claim is one of past persecution, it is unreasonable to draw inferences regarding the circumstances of abortions performed in 1990 and 1991 based upon a report prepared nearly a decade later. And this is so quite apart from our frequently-stated caution that State Department reports cannot be presumed to present[] the most accurate picture of human rights in the country at issue, and that such reports do not automatically discredit contrary evidence presented by [an asylum] applicant. Tian-Yong Chen v. INS, 359 F.3d 121, 130 (2d Cir.2004). 88 It follows that the IJ did not have before him reliable evidence upon which to base his conclusion that Lin's wife's abortions were voluntary, rather than forced as she attested in an affidavit which the IJ found, on the whole, to be credible.