Opinion ID: 769714
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: He is -at present he is in the United States.

Text: 13 Q. What is his immigration status? 14 A. Same as mine. 15 Q. When did he come to the United States? 16 A. I don't remember the exact date. I think it was two or three years back. 17 Q. Two or three years ago. Approximately what year, sir? 18 A. '94 -93. I don't have the exact date. 19 Q. Approximately when? 20 Petitioner's counsel then objected, stating that the question had been asked and answered. The judge overruled the objection, stating that Petitioner had been so precise on dates and years on direct examination it's appropriate to further recall on cross. Petitioner then answered the question: 21 A. '93. 22 Q. When in 1993? 23 A. September. 24 Shortly thereafter, INS counsel pointed out to Petitioner that at his November 14, 1994, asylum interview, he had told hisinterviewer that his father was living safely on his farm [in India] at that time. Upon hearing this account, Petitioner corrected his earlier testimony, stating that his father came to the United States very shortly after the interview. Petitioner subsequently testified on two separate occasions that his father had indeed come to the United States after his asylum interview, and that he had earlier been forced to guess incorrectly that September 1993 was the date of his father's arrival in the United States. A reading of the record reveals that Petitioner merely made an erroneous guess when asked about the date of his father's arrival, that Petitioner had no incentive to lie about the date, and that Petitioner on several occasions tried to correct his testimony in a manner consistent with his earlier statement at his asylum interview. Moreover, other than INS's desire to catch Petitioner in a lie, it is altogether unclear why the date of his father's arrival in the United States was in any way relevant to Petitioner's claim. No one disputes that Petitioner's father was in India at the time of the alleged persecution. 25 Under Ninth Circuit law, the discrepancy in the testimony described above is not a sufficient basis for an adverse credibility determination. See Campos-Sanchez v. INS , 164 F.3d 448, 450 (9th Cir. 1999) (Inconsistencies of less than substantial importance for which a plausible explanation is offered cannot form the sole basis for an adverse credibility finding.) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); Garrovillas v. INS, 156 F.3d 1010, 1014 (9th Cir. 1997) (reversing an adverse credibility finding based on discrepancy between an asylum application and testimony where the most likely explanation for the change is a desire to tell the truth and to correct a false statement that reflected no culpable conduct on his part); Vilorio-Lopez v. INS , 852 F.2d 1137, 1142 (9th Cir. 1988) (Minor inconsistencies in the record such as discrepancies in dates which reveal nothing about an asylum applicant's fear for his safety are not an adequate basis for an adverse credibility finding.) (citation omitted). 26 In short, the discrepancy between Petitioner's asylum interview and his testimony was based on his admittedly fuzzy recollection of that date, and Petitioner immediately clarified his actual testimony to explain any discrepancy. The fact that Petitioner had testified with great specificity about dates on which the alleged persecution took place, but had difficulty recalling the date of his father's emigration, was not substantial evidence supporting an adverse credibility determination.