Opinion ID: 203117
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: IJ's and BIA's Evaluation of the Evidence

Text: The IJ's decision included a detailed summary of the testimony given by both petitioners at the hearing and explained at length why the judge concluded that [t]he testimony was neither consistent, nor sufficiently detailed to provide a plausible and coherent account of the basis of [Hem's] fear. The decision listed seven specific points of concern: 1. Both petitioners testified that Lieutenant Rin was the individual who shot at Mom from a motorcycle in June 2002, but Hem's affidavit had identified the assailant only as a man on a motorcycledespite the fact that the affidavit included specific references to Rin in eight other paragraphs. 2. Hem did not mention the two tireslashing episodes in her direct testimony, and her testimony about other alleged attacks on her house and threats against her was vague and lacked specificity of detail, as did her testimony about the political activities that allegedly motivated these threats. 3. Although Hem stated in her asylum application that she was subject to arrest in Cambodia and that her husband also was being sought by Hun Sen's policemen, she testified during cross-examination that there was no arrest warrant for either of them. She also testified that only Lieutenant Rin, and not the Cambodian government as a whole, was seeking their arrest. 4. The IJ found inherently improbable Hem's testimony that Lieutenant Rin twice traveled fifty kilometers to her home to inquire about her husband's whereabouts and threaten her. The judge noted that Hem did not explain how Rin knew where she was and why he would make the trips and then not carry out the threats. 5. Hem showed very limited knowledge of the Sam Rainsy Party and the political situation in Cambodia, which the IJ deemed inconsistent with her claim of persecution based on political activism. She could not explain the reasons for the military coup in 1997 that she claimed prompted her and her husband to go into hiding, and she did not know the name of the SRP representative from her district. She also had not been politically involved since coming to the United States and was unaware that the SRP had an office in the town where she lived (Lowell, Massachusetts). 6. Mom's testimony about the reasons for his brief trips to Vietnam and Thailand were not credible, and his testimony that he took the trips because he felt in danger was inconsistent with Hem's explanation for the trips and utterly inconsistent with his return to Cambodia the same day or two days later. 7. Both petitioners admitted making false statements in their visa interviews at the U.S. Embassy, and Mom testified that he had presented false documents to obtain a U.S. visa. Although acknowledging that false documents would not on their own necessarily undermine credibility, the IJ noted that the petitioners had not adequately explained why it was necessary for Mom, but not Hem, to travel under an assumed name and further questioned, inter alia, the listing of Hem's niece on her passport. The IJ concluded that, [t]aken as a whole, the above discrepancies do not concern `trivia', but rather facts that `go to the heart of the asylum claim,' leading the judge to find that neither respondent testified credibly, and therefore the respondents did not demonstrate eligibility for asylum. The BIA's per curiam decision reviewed several of the inconsistencies, including Hem's failure to identify Lieutenant Rin in her affidavit as the individual who shot at her husband from a motorcycle. The BIA noted that, because Hem testified that Rin was the only Hun Sen follower interested in her political involvement, and thus the only person whom she now fears, it was significant to her claim whether he was the shooter or whether it was a different individual `on a motorcycle' as the application indicates. The BIA also pointed out that her testimony that Lieutenant Rin was the only one interested in her contrasted with her application statement that she was generally subject to arrest by police authorities in Cambodia, and observed that [t]his is a noteworthy difference regarding the nature of the threat and potential persecutor(s) she allegedly would face. The BIA also pointed to Hem's failure to meaningfully challenge the IJ's finding that she had little political knowledge, concluding that [t]he Immigration Judge did not clearly err in finding that the respondent's lack of political knowledge about her own party undercut the credibility of her assertions of political involvement. Although the BIA deemed Hem's failure to mention the tire slashing incidents in her direct testimony as less important, it observed that such an omission was of concern because Hem herself had few direct and unambiguous difficulties from Lieutenant Rin. The BIA also found it significant that Hem used her own name for traveling, but Mom felt compelled to use a false name. Given these and other unexplained aspects of petitioners' testimony, the BIA found no clear error in the IJ's credibility determination and, consequently, concluded that Hem failed to meet her burden of proof for asylum and withholding of removal. The BIA also concluded that she had presented no credible evidence of either past torture or the likelihood of future torture in Cambodia and thus was ineligible for CAT relief.