Opinion ID: 781977
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Corroborative Evidence Requirement

Text: 53 The BIA apparently denied Qiu's application not only because Qiu gave supposedly vague testimony, but also because Qiu did not produce sufficient corroborative evidence. This raises the question of whether the alleged shortfall of corroborative evidence constitutes an independent ground on which we can affirm the BIA's decision. 54 Our decision in Diallo states that an immigration judge has the authority to deny eligibility for asylum in some cases where the applicant has failed to provide certain corroborative documents, even though the applicant testified credibly to facts that, if true, would qualify her for refugee status. See supra note 5. But Diallo also strictly limits the application of this authority. Thus, Diallo holds that to turn down a refugee candidate for want of sufficient corroboration, the adjudicator must (a) identify the particular pieces of missing, relevant documentation, and (b) show that the documentation at issue was reasonably available to the petitioner. See Diallo, 232 F.3d at 285-90; see also Alvarado-Carillo, 251 F.3d at 54-55 ([T]he BIA here did not identify any particular document or type of document it believed to be missing from the record (as it did in Diallo ), much less explain why it would have been reasonable to expect the provision of such materials ...) (internal quotation marks omitted). Given these requirements, we cannot affirm the BIA's decision. 9 55 In denying Qiu's petition, the BIA listed the following as missing pieces of evidence: birth certificates for ... his children, a copy of his brother's household registry listing his first-born son, and unspecified evidence that would have shown that Qiu's wife was forced to have the operation against her will. But under Diallo and Alvarado-Carillo, the IJ and BIA had no leeway to deny Qiu's application without first (a) pointing to specific pieces of missing, relevant documentation, and (b) showing that this documentation was reasonably available to Qiu. See Diallo, 232 F.3d at 290; Alvarado-Carillo, 251 F.3d at 54-55. This was not done. The BIA's ruling did not establish the availability (to Qiu) of the desired paperwork, and, as to the forcedness of Qiu's wife's sterilization, it did not even indicate what sort of evidence would have served to corroborate the coercion. 56 These gaps are enough to settle the case before us. Nevertheless, the reasons for Diallo 's requirements are worth restating. Unless the BIA anchors its demands for corroboration to evidence which indicates what the petitioner can reasonably be expected to provide, there is a serious risk that unreasonable demands will inadvertently be made. What is reasonably available differs among societies and, given the widely varied and sometimes terrifying circumstances under which refugees flee their homelands, from one asylum seeker to the next. 57 Consider in this regard the BIA's statement that Qiu should have produced his children's birth certificates. That seems only natural to the jurist in an affluent, Western society, with advanced systems of record-keeping, in which most every child is born in a hospital, and in which citizens may retrieve their files from the state. What is (subjectively) natural to demand may not, however, be (objectively) reasonable. As for Chinese birth control certificates, the BIA points to nothing that even suggests the existence of such documents, let alone their prevalence, or their accessibility to asylum seekers. 10 58 Diallo 's requirement that the BIA back its demands for corroborative evidence with a reasoned explanation—an explanation that responds to evidence of actual conditions in the asylum-seeker's former country of residence—constitutes one small, but crucial, defense against potentially mistaken, culturally based assumptions about the existence and availability of documents. 11 59