Opinion ID: 217244
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Overlooked Evidence

Text: The majority next mentions that Dehonzai had plenty of notice of the need to buttress his case. In fact, he did so. Given our mandate to review the record as a whole, we ought to take a look at the swaths of relevant material in the record that the IJ and BIA skipped over in rendering their decisions. Some of this material was specific to Dehonzai, including the Toualy letter and the potential arrest warrant. [17] This relevant evidence deserved thoughtful consideration; instead, it received out-of-hand rejections on irrelevant grounds. More importantly, however, the IJ and BIA appear to have ignored the Amnesty International and State Department country reports (with the sole and notable exception of the much-discussed Jules Toualy quote) that make up much of the record. Although DHS regulations no longer expressly require a credibility determination to be conducted in light of general conditions in the applicant's country of nationality, 8 C.F.R. § 208.13 (1997) (superseded by current version), we may still find error where the IJ and BIA unreasonably ignored these reports, and gave no explanation for why [they] did so. Mukamusoni, 390 F.3d at 124. Indeed, [s]uch documentary evidence is extremely important for contextualizing, in the absence of direct corroboration, the events which [an applicant] claims constitute persecution. Id. (internal quotation marks removed). This context can help a fact-finder in the endeavor not to allow preconceptions garnered from life in the United States to color [an] evaluation of events that took place in foreign lands. Sok, 526 F.3d at 56. Such nuance was and is lacking in the IJ, BIA, and majority's respective reviews. To sum up my view, this is the sort of case where the IJ and [BIA] misstate[d] [an immigrant's] testimony, appl[ied] labels (like inconsistent and evasive) that are at odds with what the transcript shows, and dr[e]w inferences that appear wholly speculative and without record support. Castaned-Castillo, 488 F.3d at 24. Indeed, I have examined the IJ's and [BIA]'s grounds and f[ou]nd each flawed to varying degrees. Kartasheva, 582 F.3d at 106. Thus, I at least cannot conscientiously find that the evidence supporting that decision is substantial, and I think we ought to overturn the IJ's and BIA's decisions and remand for a determination of the merits of Dehonzai's asylum application. See Sok, 526 F.3d at 53. Put another way: the whole sometimes can exceed the sum of the parts, as the majority quotes Mariko v. Holder, 632 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir.2011); here, if each of the immigration courts' errors were individually a rotting fish, the whole of their decisions' stench would be truly unbearable.