Opinion ID: 2978834
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Adverse Credibility Ruling

Text: No. 09-3461 Sanaj v. Holder Page 9 In an immigration case, it is the alien’s initial burden to establish that he is eligible for asylum or, alternatively, that he qualifies for withholding of removal. In this case, the IJ found that Sanaj did not meet his burdens because of inconsistencies and omissions from his testimony that rendered him not credible. Sanaj claims that substantial evidence does not support the adverse credibility finding because the inconsistencies and omissions were minor and attributable to his fatigue. Like any other finding of fact in an immigration proceeding, we will affirm an adverse credibility determination if it is supported by substantial evidence in the record. Sarr v. Gonzales, 485 F.3d 354, 360 (6th Cir. 2007). While this standard of review is highly deferential, such a determination “must be supported by specific reasons and must be based upon issues ‘that go to the heart of the applicant's claim.’” Id. (quoting Sylla v. INS, 388 F.3d 924, 926 (6th Cir. 2004)). Where, as here, the IJ bases an adverse credibility determination at least in part on discrepancies in the petitioner’s testimony, “‘[i]f discrepancies cannot be viewed as attempts by the applicant to enhance his claims of persecution, they have no bearing on credibility.’” Id. (quoting Sylla, 388 F.3d at 926). However, the fact remains that when we review a determination for substantial evidence, we may not reverse the IJ’s determination merely because we would have decided the matter differently; we may only reverse if the record actually compels a determination different than that of the IJ. Id. at 359-60 (quoting INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481 (1992)). Our review of the transcript and the evidence in the record leads us to conclude that the IJ’s adverse credibility determination was, indeed, supported by substantial evidence as defined by our precedents. Sanaj is correct that it would be unreasonable to expect perfect, mistake-free testimony given the passage of time and intervening events, and that an adverse credibility finding by an IJ may No. 09-3461 Sanaj v. Holder Page 10 not act as a shibboleth that clears the path to unquestioning affirmance by our Court. However, the discrepancies in Sanaj’s testimony and between his testimony and his asylum application were real and, at times, glaring. Among other things, he repeatedly stated in testimony that the first instance of persecution occurred in December of 1990 but, in his asylum application, he attested to two incidents earlier in the year in which police allegedly beat him during anti-communist rallies.3 Along similar lines, Sanaj testified that he was attacked outside of the Democratic Party office in December 2002, but in his application he stated the attack occurred outside of a cafe, a material discrepancy because an attack outside of a cafe could be for any number of reasons but one could infer that an attack outside of a party office was due to party affiliation. Finally, he claimed that he had never been arrested or charged with a crime since entering the United States, but he later admitted to having been arrested for assault. (J.A. 287-89.) Even if we would have been inclined to forgive these inconsistencies were we sitting in the role of the IJ, we cannot say that the IJ’s adverse credibility determination finds no basis in the record. Thus, in light of the extremely deferential standard of review under which we operate here, we are compelled to affirm the IJ’s adverse credibility determination. 3 This example highlights an interesting aspect of Sanaj’s case. As stated above, discrepancies typically bear on credibility only to the extent that they can be viewed as an attempt by the petitioner to strengthen or inflate his claims of persecution. Thus, in the typical case of discrepancies between an asylum application and later testimony, the testimony will assert more egregious facts than the application in an attempt to bolster the claim of past persecution. Here, however, there are numerous examples of the version of events in the application being harsher than the version in Sanaj’s live testimony. Yet, there are also several instances of Sanaj’s testifying to a materially worse state of affairs than that described in his asylum application, and these instances are “substantial evidence” sufficient to support the IJ’s adverse credibility determination. No. 09-3461 Sanaj v. Holder Page 11