Court Opinion

ID: 9798602
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 05:11:58.294738+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:36.228352
License: Public Domain

PAEZ, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The majority concludes that the IJ’s findings of implausibility concerning Cortes’s testimony are distinguishable from the circumstances in Lopez-Reyes because they were “not based on speculation or conjecture about what the attackers would do, but on the improbability of the Petitioner’s own conduct.” Mem. at 2. I disagree. In Lopez-Reyes, we considered circumstances where the petitioner testified that he was approached by twenty armed guerillas who fired shots at him and beat him with rifles. 79 F.3d at 910. The IJ determined that the petitioner was not credible because it was implausible that the guerillas would beat, shoot at and threaten him, but not kill him. Id. We held the IJ’s adverse credibility determination was not supported by substantial evidence because it was not based on objective fact or cogent reason, but rather on personal conjecture about what guerillas would and would not do. Id. at 912.
Here, the IJ found that Cortes was not credible because it was “implausible that if [the FARC] wanted to shoot [Cortes] that they would fail to do so, having fired at him numerous times.” The IJ offered no objective factual explanation for this conclusion, nor any cogent reason beyond her personal conjecture about what the FARC would and would not do. Moreover, this finding was based, not on Cortes’s actions, as the majority suggests, but on speculation regarding the actions and intentions of the FARC. In my view, the circumstances here are analogous to those in Lopez-*707Reyes and I would therefore conclude that the IJ’s adverse credibility determination is not supported by substantial evidence.1
The majority also holds that, even were we to assume that Cortes was a credible witness, he has not established that the persecution he experienced was on account of a protected ground. Mem. at 2-3. In so holding, the majority explains that “[t]he alleged confrontations were prompted by Petitioner’s association with the military and not by any of his political opinions or beliefs.” Mem. at 2-3. In my view, this conclusion does not accurately reflect Cortes’s testimony.
As Cortes explained, although the FARC members initially contacted him because of his military status, they subsequently threatened and persecuted him only after he refused to assist them and insinuated that they were a terrorist organization. As the testimony clearly shows, Cortes was first approached by the FARC members when leaving church. They informed him that they needed information about his military service and the military base at which he worked. They also wanted him to help them in their efforts against the government. Cortes refused, stating that he was not a criminal or a terrorist. He then testified that, “they told me since I had refused, they said I’m not going to live to tell the story, because no one says no to us.” It was only after this exchange that Cortes was threatened and later shot at several times by the FARC members.
To conclude that this evidence does not compel the conclusion that Cortes’s political opinion was a central reason for his persecution, and that he was instead persecuted on account of his military status, is an erroneous reading of the record. In light of the record in this ease, I would hold that the IJ and BIA erred in finding that the harm Cortes experienced was on account of his military status, and would remand for proper consideration of his political opinion claim.
For all of these reasons, I would grant the petition and remand Cortes’s claims for withholding of removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3) and relief under the Convention Against Torture, 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c)(2), for further consideration.

. Although the majority does not address the other credibility issues raised by the IJ, I note that as to these adverse credibility findings, the IJ either failed to provide Cortes with an opportunity to explain any of the identified inconsistencies, or failed to consider proffered explanations. This was error and "prevents the underlying inconsistency from serving as substantial evidence to support the IJ's adverse credibility finding.” Soto-Olarte v. Holder, 555 F.3d 1089, 1091 (9th Cir.2009); see also Joseph v. Holder, 600 F.3d 1235, 1244-45 (9th Cir.2010). I would therefore remand these additional credibility issues to the BIA for further consideration. Once the agency has revisited the credibility issues, it can apply our decision in Ren v. Holder, 648 F.3d 1079 (9th Cir.2011), to determine whether corroborative evidence is needed.