Court Opinion

ID: 9556180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-16 15:00:31.677949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:00.979423
License: Public Domain

20-789
    Belkaniya v. Garland
                                                                                    BIA
                                                                                 Hom, IJ
                                                                    A087 985 206/207/208

                           UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                               FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

                                SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY
ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF
APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY
ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL
APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY
CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY
COUNSEL.

          At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second
    Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley
    Square, in the City of New York, on the 16th day of August, two thousand
    twenty-three.

    PRESENT:
                     GUIDO CALABRESI,
                     SUSAN L. CARNEY,
                     JOSEPH F. BIANCO,
                     Circuit Judges.
    _____________________________________

    TEMUR BELKANIYA, MARIKA
    NADIRADZE, NINA BELKANIYA,
            Petitioners,

                     v.                                          20-789
                                                                 NAC
    MERRICK B. GARLAND, UNITED
    STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL,
               Respondent.
    _____________________________________
FOR PETITIONERS:                   Alexander J. Segal, Esq., The Law Offices of
                                   Grinberg & Segal, P.L.L.C., New York, NY.

FOR RESPONDENT:                    Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Acting Assistant
                                   Attorney General; Julia J. Tyler, Acting Senior
                                   Litigation Counsel; Elizabeth R. Chapman,
                                   Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration
                                   Litigation, United States Department of
                                   Justice, Washington, DC.

      UPON DUE CONSIDERATION of this petition for review of a Board of

Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) decision, it is hereby ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

DECREED that the petition for review is GRANTED.

      Petitioners Temur Belkaniya (“Belkaniya”) and his wife Marika Nadiradze,

natives of the former Soviet Union and citizens of Uzbekistan, and their daughter,

Nina Belkaniya, a native and citizen of Uzbekistan, seek review of a February 18,

2020 decision of the BIA, affirming a June 14, 2018 decision of an Immigration

Judge (“IJ”), which denied Belkaniya’s application for asylum, withholding of

removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). 1          In re

Belkaniya, No. A 087 985 206/207/208 (B.I.A. Feb. 18, 2020), aff’g No. A 087 985

206/207/208 (Immig. Ct. N.Y. City June 14, 2018). Belkaniya asserted that he was

persecuted and feared future persecution because he was gay, ethnically Georgian,

1
   We primarily refer to Belkaniya because his wife and daughter were derivative
applicants, and his daughter does not challenge the agency’s decision that she was
ineligible for derivative status following her marriage.
                                        2
and an Orthodox Christian.        We assume the parties’ familiarity with the

underlying facts and procedural history.

      We review the decisions of both the IJ and the BIA. See Wangchuck v. Dep’t

of Homeland Sec., 448 F.3d 524, 528 (2d Cir. 2006). We review questions of law and

the application of law to fact de novo, and review factual findings, including the

agency’s adverse credibility determination, for substantial evidence. Hong Fei

Gao v. Sessions, 891 F.3d 67, 76 (2d Cir. 2018); Yanqin Weng v. Holder, 562 F.3d 510,

513 (2d Cir. 2009). “[T]he administrative findings of fact are conclusive unless

any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.”

8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B).

I.    Credibility Determinations

      “Considering the totality of the circumstances, and all relevant factors, a

trier of fact may base a credibility determination on . . . the consistency between

the applicant’s or witness’s written and oral statements . . . , the internal

consistency of each such statement, [and] the consistency of such statements with

other evidence of record . . . without regard to whether an inconsistency,

inaccuracy, or falsehood goes to the heart of the applicant’s claim.” 8 U.S.C.

§ 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii). “We defer to an IJ’s credibility determination unless, from the

totality of the circumstances, it is plain that no reasonable fact-finder could make

                                         3
such an adverse credibility ruling.”     Hong Fei Gao, 891 F.3d at 76 (alteration

adopted) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Where, however, there

is an error in one of the bases for the adverse credibility determination, we remand

unless we can be “confident that the agency would reach the same result upon a

reconsideration cleansed of errors.” Gurung v. Barr, 929 F.3d 56, 62 (2d Cir. 2019).

We grant Belkaniya’s petition because we find error in the agency’s consideration

of one inconsistency and cannot be confident that the agency would draw an

adverse credibility determination on the basis of the remaining inconsistencies.

      The IJ relied on three inconsistencies in the record.       One inconsistency

concerned whether Belkaniya was summoned to an Uzbeki police precinct by

phone or by mail for an investigation into his sexual orientation. At his hearing,

Belkaniya testified that Uzbeki police summoned him to the police precinct by

letter. But Belkaniya’s asylum interview statements, as recorded in the asylum

officer’s summary, indicated that Belkaniya was summoned to the precinct by

phone call. When presented with the interview record at his hearing, Belkaniya

challenged the reliability of the summary. Although we have cautioned that the

agency must “carefully . . . consider the reliability of asylum interviews,” Diallo v.

Gonzales, 445 F.3d 624, 632 (2d Cir. 2006), neither the IJ nor the BIA did so here.

We agree with Belkaniya that the record does not foreclose the possibility that the

                                          4
asylum officer, rather than Belkaniya, is responsible for the inconsistency, and that

the IJ erred by relying on this alleged inconsistency without assessing the

reliability of the asylum interview.

      The agency relied on two other inconsistencies in finding that Belkaniya was

not credible: when Belkaniya left his college in Georgia (including whether he

graduated), and the exact date that he met his current boyfriend after arriving in

the United States. Neither of these inconsistencies “alter[s] the overall timeline”

of Belkaniya’s account. Mutoni v. Garland, No. 19-4304, 2023 WL 4926203, at *1

(2d Cir. Aug. 2, 2023).     Because we “cannot confidently predict whether the

agency would adhere to the [credibility] determination” on the basis of these two

inconsistencies, we “remand for the agency to reconsider the question.” Singh v.

Garland, 6 F.4th 418, 427 (2d Cir. 2021). 2

II.   Asylum Claim

      The agency’s adverse credibility determination as to Belkaniya does not end

2
   We thus do not consider whether the agency erred by concluding that the country
conditions evidence in the record did not establish a “pattern or practice” of
discrimination because the Department of State’s Country Conditions Reports on
Uzbekistan for the years 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 stated that Uzbeki law criminalizing
homosexual conduct was not enforced. See 8 C.F.R. §§ 1208.13(b)(2), 1208.16(b)(2). We
note only that the Department of State’s most recent Country Conditions Report for
Uzbekistan indicates that the law is enforced, and notes several instances of individuals
being prosecuted for same-sex sexual conduct. Uzbekistan 2022 Human Rights Report, at
34–35, U.S. STATE DEP’T (2022), https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/41561
0_UZBEKISTAN-2022-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf.
                                              5
the inquiry because the agency was required to (and did) consider whether there

was other credible evidence supporting his asylum claim, such as Nadiradze’s

testimony about experiencing abuses with Belkaniya based on their shared

religious identity as Orthodox Christians.

      The IJ and the BIA concluded that Nadiradze’s testimony was too vague to

satisfy Belkaniya’s burden for asylum based on religious persecution. Nadiradze

testified that, on several occasions, she and Belkaniya were surrounded, insulted,

and pelted with stones when attending church, and the police declined to

intervene despite being present. Nadiradze’s testimony was consistent with her

husband’s. The IJ found that Nadiradze’s failure to identify her attackers and

their motivation for throwing stones doomed Belkaniya’s asylum claim.            On

review, the BIA agreed that the testimony was insufficient to meet Belkaniya’s

burden of proof because it was “generalized and lacking in detail,” and because

Nadiradze, in her testimony, admitted that neither she nor Belkaniya were injured

in the attacks.

      The agency’s rejection of Nadiradze’s testimony as too vague was error.

“Testimony is too vague if it doesn’t identify facts corresponding to each of the

elements of one of the refugee categories of the immigration statutes.” Jin Chen v.

U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 426 F.3d 104, 114 (2d Cir. 2005). Here, Nadiradze testified to

                                         6
facts supporting each element of an asylum claim—that the family suffered

persecution in the form of attacks pelting the family with stones on account of their

membership in a religious group. We have accepted testimony that is nearly

identical to Nadiradze’s as sufficiently detailed to make out a claim of past

persecution without requiring the petitioner to identify their assailants. See, e.g.,

Paul v. Gonzales, 444 F.3d 148, 151 (2d Cir. 2006). And Nadiradze’s testimony

regarding the nature of the attacks was sufficient circumstantial evidence to show

that the attacks were motivated by religion. See Zhang v. Gonzales, 426 F.3d 540,

545 (2d Cir. 2005) (permitting circumstantial evidence to prove motive); see also

Aliyev v. Mukasey, 549 F.3d 111, 116 (2d Cir. 2008) (“[A]n asylum applicant need

not show with absolute certainty why the events occurred, but rather, only that

the harm was motivated, in part, by an actual or imputed protected ground.”).

Nadiradze testified that the attacks occurred in the church parking lot, at the time

that the church congregation exited the church, and targeted not just her and her

husband, but also other church congregants. This evidence is sufficient to show

that the attacks were motivated by Nadiradze’s faith. Cf. Quituizaca v. Garland, 52

F.4th 103, 115 (2d Cir. 2022) (determining persecutors’ motive by considering the

timing of attacks and whether other members of the same protected group were

also targeted). Accordingly, we cannot say that Nadiradze’s testimony was too

                                         7
vague to support a claim of past persecution.3

                                    *      *     *

      We have considered Belkaniya’s remaining arguments and find them to be

without merit.

      The petition for review is GRANTED, the agency’s decisions are VACATED,

and the case is REMANDED. All pending motions and applications are DENIED

and stays VACATED.

                                        FOR THE COURT:
                                        Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe,
                                        Clerk of Court

3
  While the agency mentioned the fact that the attacks did not injure Belkaniya and his
wife, it did not base its decision on that fact. Accordingly, we need not and do not
address that issue.
                                          8