Opinion ID: 2998614
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: “Inconsistent” Documentary Submissions

Text: Shtaro also contests the IJ’s finding that her testimony was inconsistent with the letter from the current Democratic Party Chairman, confirming the period of her employment with the Party, and the letters from the doctor who treated her after the March 2 attacks. The IJ disbelieved that any rape occurred because no rape was mentioned in either the Chairman’s letter (which stated that Shtaro told the Party she was leaving her job because of complications with her pregnancy, without ascribing them to rape), or the doctor’s letters. But adverse credibility determinations may not be based on minor discrepancies that are easily explained, see Tolosa v. Ashcroft, 384 F.3d 906, 909 (7th Cir. 2004), and the IJ did not attempt to ascertain whether these omissions could be accounted for. See Uwase, 349 F.3d at 1042-43 (holding that failure to explore “possible explanations” for an inconsistency “cast[s] doubt on [the IJ’s] credibility determination”). Shtaro should not have been discredited simply because she did not tell her employer that she was raped. Cf. Kebede v. Ashcroft, 366 F.3d 808, 811 (9th Cir. 2004) (“victim of sexual assault does not irredeemably compromise his or her credibility by failing to 8 No. 04-4201 report the assault at the first opportunity”). Nor should the doctor’s letters have been discounted as “inconsistent” absent any showing that her failure to specify the origin of Shtaro’s injuries was significant. See Hor, 421 F.3d at 500 (psychiatrist’s failure to mention terrorist incident as cause of alien’s post-traumatic stress syndrome was not “reasoned basis” for adverse credibility determination).