Opinion ID: 815111
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Dates of Relatives’ Sterilizations

Text: Third, the IJ found that Ms. Zheng exhibited “selective memory” that “greatly minimize[d] her credibility” because she was able to recite the exact dates that four relatives were involuntarily sterilized, all of which occurred after she left China, but she was unable to remember the year in which she witnessed her uncle involuntarily sterilized while she was still in China. R. at 109. The IJ observed that “there was no - 12 - effort on re-direct to establish why the respondent was able to precisely recall sterilizations that she did not witness yet was only able to tell the Court that the sterilization she did witness fell within a span of four to six years, ‘sometime in middle school or high school.’” Id. As petitioners point out, the dates that the four relatives were sterilized are set out in letters they wrote describing their sterilizations, and those letters were admitted into evidence in support of petitioners’ claims. It is therefore unsurprising that Ms. Zheng could recite the dates at the hearing. And as to her uncle’s sterilization, it is unremarkable that, at age twenty-eight, Ms. Zheng would be unable to recall the exact year for an event that happened “more than 10 years ago,” when she “was a teenager” and still “in middle school or high school.” Id. at 181. Although the IJ faulted Ms. Zheng for providing no explanation on re-direct, she was never questioned during cross-examination about her recall of the dates of the four relatives, so there was no reason to bring it up on re-direct, which would have been beyond the scope of cross-examination. And she explained during cross-examination that the incident with her uncle happened while she was still in middle or high school, more than ten years earlier. Given that the dates of the other four relatives were in the record, we see no support for the IJ’s finding that Ms. Zheng’s “selective memory greatly minimize[d] her credibility.” Id. at 109. Ms. Zheng’s ability to recite the precise dates of the four relatives’ sterilizations but not the precise date of her uncle’s sterilization was not a cogent or substantially - 13 - reasonable basis for finding her not credible regarding her fear of future persecution. See Ismaiel, 516 F.3d at 1205; Chaib, 397 F.3d at 1278; Woldemeskel, 257 F.3d at 1192.3