Opinion ID: 168640
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Inconsistency Regarding the Birth Certificate.

Text: 37 The first purported inconsistency discussed by the BIA concerns Mr. Sarr's testimony as to the fate of his birth certificate. The BIA recognized that Mr. Sarr offered an explanation for this seeming inconsistency and stated that the IJ did not completely describe this explanation. Admin. R. at 2. The BIA concluded, however, that the record reflects that the respondent made contradictory statements with regard to the central issue of the alleged destruction of his family's documents. ... Id. The BIA provided no further discussion as to what these inconsistencies were and provided no citation to the record. We are thus left to consult the IJ's more complete discussion and the record itself. As to this issue, the IJ found the following: 38 [R]espondent has ... testified ... [t]hat his father brought out the paperwork regarding the family and that the soldiers destroyed all of the paperwork. That nothing was available. Now, all of a sudden, he comes up with a birth certificate. From where, I have no idea other [than] what he said, the mother had it on her. Well, according to what [he told] us previously, ... the father had it and handed it to the soldiers and they destroyed all of the paperwork and ... there was nothing left there. 39 Id. at 54-55. 40 A review of the record suggests that the IJ and the BIA significantly overemphasize the inconsistent nature of Mr. Sarr's statements. In his Form I-589 asylum application, Mr. Sarr said only this regarding the documents: [The soldiers] spoke with my father and ordered him to identify himself and also his family members to be Mauritanian citizens. He entered his room and came out with few documents and gave them. After they looked at the documents, they tore the documents and threw the pieces away. Id. at 175. At the hearing before the IJ, Mr. Sarr discussed the document destruction three times: 41 First, at the beginning of the hearing, counsel asked Mr. Sarr how the birth certificate escaped destruction by the soldiers. Mr. Sarr responded: 42 My mother was holding [my birth certificate]. My mother had all the papers. When they came they asked the papers to my father so my father requested that my mother bring them out and she brought everything but this last one that remained with the other papers that were there. 43 Id. at 79. He further explained that mores in the Islamic country of Mauritania accounted for the soldiers' failure to search the mother and children. Id. at 80. 44 During the second discussion of the documents, the following exchange occurred: 45 Q: What did the soldiers want from your father? 46 A: They asked him to prove that he was a Mauritanian citizen. 47 Q: Did he? What did he do about it? 48 A: When they asked him that they requested that he brings [sic] all his paperwork. That's when he went to my mom and requested that she give him all our paperwork. 49 Q: Did he end up giving them away or not? 50 A: Yes. 51 Q: What did they do with them? 52 A: He looked at the paperwork and then he destroyed it. 53 Id. at 82. 54 The third piece of testimony regarding the paperwork consisted of the following: 55 Q: ... How did the soldiers destroy your family paperwork? 56 A: This is how, the paper it has my father's certificate of nationality, his ID, his passport, and then my siblings and everybody else paperwork, certificate. And my father gave it to them hoping that this will save him but they took it and they torn it. It was torn. 57 Id. at 101. 58 As the BIA conceded, the IJ failed to describe fully Mr. Sarr's explanation of how his mother retained the birth certificate. At first, in response to a specific question about his birth certificate, Mr. Sarr said his mother had retained it. Later, in response to more general questions about the family's paperwork, he said all of it was destroyed. Although Mr. Sarr's later statements contain some language about all the paperwork and everybody else[`s] paperwork being destroyed, these statements were made through a translator and in the shadow of the very specific explanation given at the outset of the questioning on this topic. Taking into account the fact that this colloquy occurred through a translator—and given that the very first thing Mr. Sarr explained about his birth certificate was its absence from the group of destroyed papers—this testimony does not appear contradictory. In the context of all that unfolded at this hearing—and in the context of the concerns this Court has previously raised regarding the testimony of asylum applicants, see Solomon v. Gonzales, 454 F.3d 1160, 1164 (10th Cir.2006) 7 —there is no direct inconsistency in Mr. Sarr's statements, and there is no apparent inconsistency in their substance. As for any other contradictory statements with regard to ... the alleged destruction of his family's documents, the BIA failed to point this Court to any and our independent review of the record has revealed none. 59