Court Opinion

ID: 9473336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:26:51.626008+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:27.924813
License: Public Domain

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Although Judge Davis has cogently presented the restrictive framework within which we must review the Board’s final order, neither the administrative officer nor the Board seems to have considered the entire record in arriving at its decision. Hence my respectful dissent.
The settled law of this circuit is that a decision whether to withhold deportation or to grant asylum must be based on a considered examination of all relevant factors and evidence. Ramos v. INS, 695 F.2d 181, 189 (5th Cir.1983); Coriolan v. INS, 559 F.2d 993, 1003-04 (5th Cir.1977); accord Zavala-Bonilla v. INS, 730 F.2d 562, 563-67 (9th Cir.1984); see Sanchez v. INS, 755 F.2d 1158 (5th Cir.1985). The opinions of the immigration judge and the Board do not adequately reflect that all relevant evidence was weighed in the decision to deny withholding and asylum. See Osuchukwu v. INS, 744 F.2d 1136, 1142-43 (5th Cir. 1984). Petitioners offered three letters from individuals in Guatemala supporting Mr. Quan’s belief that he had been fired because of his son’s political affiliation and stating that “the lives of the whole family would be in grave danger of death, considering the current political situation.” The Board dismissed the letters in a footnote as being nothing more than “so-called objec*458tive evidence,” and the immigration judge’s opinion, generously read, mentioned only one of the three letters that were in the record and discounted even that one letter without any suggested justification. Apart from issues of credibility or persuasiveness, the Board’s failure to consider these letters as objective evidence constitutes reversible error even under the most deferential abuse of discretion standard. Ramos, 695 F.2d at 185-88.
We have previously required greater substantiation of final orders of deportation by the INS:
[T]he decision of the immigration authorities must affirmatively reflect that they have meaningfully addressed and reached a reasoned conclusion concerning all the factors relevant to that determination which are based on evidence, a requirement that the Board itself abstractly recognized, but did not apply.
Id. at 189 (citing Prapavat v. INS, 662 F.2d 561, 562 (9th Cir.1982)). Moreover, while we have not expressly held that letters such as petitioners’ constitute relevant and material objective evidence for purposes of asylum and withholding of deportation claims, the Ninth Circuit has had occasion to hold just that. Zavala-Bonilla, 730 F.2d at 565-67. The court of appeals’ expression of the petitioner’s situation in Zavala-Bonilla is equally apt on the facts of our case:
[T]he BIA denigrated the letters as gratuitous speculations that refer only generally to Zavala-Bonilla’s past union activities, the current unemployment situation and human rights violations in El Salvador, and possible dangers Zavala-Bonilla would face were she to return to her native land. The record, however, does not support the BIA’s treatment of the letters. There is no evidence that the letters are false. While one might infer that her friends in El Salvador would tend to write supportive letters, it is difficult to imagine, given her circumstances, what other forms of testimony Zavala-Bonilla could readily present. She could hardly ask the authorities in El Salvador to certify that she would be persecuted should she return. Furthermore, the letter writers undoubtedly placed themselves at risk merely by writing. Their understandable fear of reprisal may also account for the letters’ lack of specificity.
On remand, the BIA should fully consider the letters from Zavala-Bonilla’s friends and her union____ [I]n considering the record as a whole, the BIA should bear in mind the difficulties an alien encounters in providing proof of potential persecution. See McMullen [v. INS, 658 F.2d 1312, 1319 (9th Cir.1981) ]; United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Handbook on Procedures for Determining Refugee Status (Geneva 1979) (because aliens have difficulty collecting proof, credible accounts should be given the benefit of the doubt).
Id. at 565, 567 (footnote omitted); see also Coriolan, 559 F.2d at 1004.
Because the administrative opinions in our case reflect only a cursory acknowledgment that petitioners’ letters had been submitted, I would remand with instructions for the Board to consider the entire record, including these letters and any additional relevant and material evidence that may have been adduced since the Board filed its final order some nine months ago.