Opinion ID: 1354339
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Application to Wakkary's withholding claim

Text: At his removal hearing, Wakkary presented some evidence of past mistreatment that he suffered personally. The IJ dismissed these incidents as random encounters... not directed against [Wakkary] personally, which, being random, had little or nothing to say about Wakkary's chances of future persecution. The events were not random in any relevant sense. For each of these incidents, Wakkary provided circumstantial evidence that his harassers were motivated by anti-Chinese and/or anti-Christian sentiment. See Sinha v. Holder, 556 F.3d 774, 779-80 (9th Cir.2009) (rejecting an IJ's characterization of attacks on Indo-Fijian petitioners, in the context of widespread violence against their ethnic group, as random, because individuals of Indo-Fijian ethnicity were the specific targets of the widespread violence and because the petitioners presented specific evidence that [their] attackers had racially discriminatory motives, including testimony that their attackers berated them with racist epithets); Baballah v. Ashcroft, 367 F.3d 1067, 1077 (9th Cir.2003) (The use of [ethnic] slur[s during the attacks] amply establishes the connection between the acts of persecution and Baballah's ethnicity and religion.). Wakkary's attackers may not have known his name, but it is clear they targeted him, and not some other bystander, because he is Chinese and/or a Christian. The only way the IJ could have considered the incidents random is by ignoring this evidence of motive, as well as the broader evidence of widespread ongoing hostility towards the Chinese and Christian community. Refusing to weigh Wakkary's individually-focused evidence in light of the risk of mistreatment and persecution that all Chinese Christians in Indonesia face, the IJ saw only random chance at work. In fact, Wakkary has shown that there is a strong correlation between the harm he personally faces and the plight of Chinese Christians in Indonesia generally. Moreover, Wakkary testified to his position as a pastor and a religious leader within the Chinese Christian community a position that makes him particularly visible and vulnerable to attack on account of his group membership. See Kotasz, 31 F.3d at 854 n. 10 ([W]here a Christian sect is targeted, priests may be more at risk than ordinary church members ....); Mgoian, 184 F.3d at 1035 n. 4 (noting that evidence of the alien's individual risk level may include evidence that the alien has a special role in the group or is more likely to come to the attention of the persecutors[,] making him a more likely target for persecution.). The question for the agency on remand will be whether Wakkary has adduced enough evidence of individual risk, in combination with enough evidence that the ethnic and religious group to which he belongs is disfavored in Indonesia, to make out a clear probability of persecution upon return. The BIA never engaged in this inquiry, because it held the disfavored group evidencethat is, the country-conditions evidence concerning the widespread mistreatment and persecution of Chinese and Christian individuals in Indonesiato be entirely irrelevant to withholding of removal. Given our limited role in reviewing orders of removal, we may not decide in the first instance whether Wakkary's evidence is sufficient to meet the standard for withholding. Rather, because the BIA misunderstood our disfavored group cases and so did not take into account the disfavored group evidence, we are obliged to remand to the BIA for an appropriate decision based on all the relevant evidence. See INS v. Ventura, 537 U.S. 12, 16-17, 123 S.Ct. 353, 154 L.Ed.2d 272 (2002).