Court Opinion

ID: 9490005
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:30:13.099563+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:50.753841
License: Public Domain

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the court in vacating the Board’s deportation order and remanding for further consideration of Angoueheva’s asylum application. I too am not convinced that the particular facts and circumstances relied on by Angoucheva to support her asylum application were adequately considered by the IJ or the Board. In addressing her persecution claims, the IJ effectively drained any force from Angoucheva’s arguments by focusing only on her Macedonian ethnicity while all but ignoring her activities on behalf of the UMO-Ilinden and the chilling response those activities prompted. That is evidenced in particular by the IJ’s observation that An-goucheva failed to establish that all 1.5 million Macedonians in Bulgaria have a well-founded fear of future persecution. (AR 60.) The IJ’s conclusion is not particularly startling, but as I said, it dilutes unfairly the particular claim of persecution that Angou-cheva advances here. As the court points out, Angoucheva’s claim rests primarily on her membership in and activities on behalf of the UMO-Ilinden, and not on her Macedonian heritage alone. Yet the IJ’s discussion of those activities, and of the sexual assault that grew out of them, is so cryptic that I cannot *791be confident that the heart of Angoucheva’s claim was ever seriously considered. And as we reaffirm today, the Board has an obligation to consider the individualized circumstances offered by an applicant to support her claim for asylum. (See ante at 789-90.)
My concerns about the IJ’s lack of attention to the truly troubling aspects of Angou-cheva’s application are not mollified by the fact that at least three of the five “observations” he made in rejecting her past persecution claim are largely irrelevant. (See ante at 787.) The IJ first noted that despite harassment from her teachers and other students, Angoueheva had been able to obtain a graduate level education and to secure full-time employment as a midwife. (AE 58.) As we remarked about a similar “observation” in Hengan v. INS, 79 F.3d 60, 63 (7th Cir.1996), however, “true enough, but irrelevant to [the applicant’s] contention.” The IJ’s finding here, like the similar finding in Hengan, does not address the particular circumstances of Angoueheva’s. persecution claim, as it addresses only generally the plight of Bulgaria’s Macedonian population under the Communist regime of Todor Zhivkov. Angoucheva’s education and employment history seem to me largely irrelevant to the specific claim that she was persecuted in 1990 after becoming a politieally-active member of the UMO-Ilinden.
The IJ’s second observation—that Angou-cheva was interrogated both in December 1973 and April 1990 but was not formally charged on either occasion—also does not seem particularly probative. Although An-goucheva was not formally charged with any offense after the pertinent interrogation in 1990, she was sexually assaulted by the interrogating officer, who indicated that he would not report her to Internal Affairs if “she was good to him.” The IJ essentially found, then, that Angoueheva was not persecuted because the State Security officer did not arrest her, he merely tried to rape her! See id. (criticizing similar finding as irrelevant—“the Ceausescu regime did not arrest Hengan, but in 1991 the police harassed her weekly”).
Finally, the IJ noted that Angoueheva was able to travel outside Bulgaria in 1982, 1983, and 1987, and that she had no difficulty obtaining a passport and leaving the country in 1990. Angoucheva’s earlier travels strike me as similarly irrelevant to her current claim—she merely accompanied her husband when he traveled outside the country as a professional musician, and in any event, those trips pre-date her activities on behalf of the UMO-Ilinden in 1990. Moreover, the fact that Angoueheva was able to leave Bulgaria in 1990 not only fails to refute her claim, it actually supports it. I would not expect that a government intent on squelching a growing movement for Macedonian rights would object when one of the activists decided to pack up and leave. See id.
The fifth of the IJ’s observations could be relevant to Angoucheva’s claim of past and future persecution, but it too reflects a refusal to grapple with Angoucheva’s particularized circumstances. The IJ indicated that the members of Angoucheva’s family who remain in Bulgaria have not encountered significant problems since her departure in 1990. If Angoucheva’s claim were based only on her Macedonian ethnicity, that would be a highly relevant fact, for the family members left behind would be similarly situated to the applicant. Yet there is no evidence in this record to suggest that the family members who remained are members of the UMO-Ilinden who, like Angoueheva, have already been singled out by government authorities. Moreover, the IJ makes no mention of the fact that after Angouche-va’s departure, State Security officers questioned her aunt about her whereabouts, directed the aunt to retain any letters she might receive, and may even be monitoring the family’s telephone calls. Those facts would seem to support Angoucheva’s claim that she is not similarly situated to the family members who remain, but that she is of greater interest to the Bulgarian government because of her UMO-Ilinden activities. I believe that the IJ and the Board should have addressed this evidence and its effect on Angoucheva’s claim. See Sanon v. INS, 52 F.3d 648, 652 (7th Cir.1995) (criticizing Board’s finding that nothing has happened to the alien’s family in his native country when the evidence showed that the alien has been *792unable to speak with family members because they feared retribution if they spoke to him).
Only in the third of his five “observations” did the IJ come close to addressing the actual substance of Angoucheva’s claim:
Although it appears that [Angoueheva] was the victim of intimidation, and threatened with violent aggression during her April, 1990 interrogation, the unwarranted actions of her interrogator do not establish a pattern or practice of government inspired or condoned persecution.
(AR 59.) Although it is possible to interpret this finding in one of two ways, the IJ appears to have adopted the INS’ view that the attempted rape was nothing but a personal act of Major Beltchev, and not an official government response to Angoucheva’s political opinions.1 The INS presses that interpretation here, arguing that the record does not compel the finding that Angoueheva was sexually assaulted by a State Security officer because of her ethnicity and political opinions, as opposed to the fact that the officer may personally have found her sexually attractive. (See INS Br. at 13, 18 & 20 (citing INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 483-84, 112 S.Ct. 812, 816-17, 117 L.Ed.2d 38 (1992)).)2 If that is what the IJ had in mind, then I certainly agree with my colleagues that a more detailed explanation is required in light of the evidence Angoueheva offered here. I would expect the Board to address, for example, how it is possible to separate the official State Security interrogation occasioned by Angoucheva’s political activism from the sexual assault by the government interrogator that immediately followed it. I would expect the Board to consider, in other words, the seemingly sensible argument that Angoueheva has made throughout these proceedings—that the sexual assault was inextricably linked to the Bulgarian government’s disapproval of her Ilinden activities and that *793it would not and could not have occurred but for those activities.
Finally, this does not strike me as a ease like Klawitter v. INS, 970 F.2d 149 (6th Cir.1992), to which the Service directed our attention for the first time at oral argument. In that case, a colonel in the Polish secret police had made advances toward the petitioner on a .number of occasions, indicating that he wished to have her as his paramour. Id. at 152. When the petitioner repeatedly resisted those advances, the colonel forced himself on her and threatened to destroy her career. The Board determined that the petitioner had not suffered persecution on account of her political opinions so as to make her eligible for asylum, and the Sixth Circuit agreed, noting that the petitioner herself had asserted “persecution” only “by a man who was interested in her sexually” while conceding that her “personal issue does not have anything to do with the government or change of government.” Id. (internal quotation omitted). The persecution claim advanced by the petitioner in Klawitter bears little resemblance to that pressed by Angou-cheva here.
Indeed, it seems to me that Angoucheva’s claim is more like that of the petitioner in Lazo-Majano v. INS, 813 F.2d 1432, 1436 (9th Cir.1987), where the Ninth Circuit found as a matter of law that the petitioner had suffered persecution on account of a political opinion. Although Lazo-Majano was not herself politically active, her husband had been a member of a rightist paramilitary group that was distrusted by El Salvador’s government. Months after her husband fled the country, Lazo-Majano was raped and otherwise abused by a sergeant in the Salvadoran military (Sergeant Zuniga), whom she had known since childhood and for whom she had recently begun to work as a domestic. The sergeant threatened to report Lazo-Ma-jano as a “subversive” if she were to tell anyone of his actions, and then indicated that he personally would kill her. Id. at 1433. Under those facts, the Ninth Circuit rejected an argument similar to that of the INS here—that the persecution was personal to the sergeant and that it could not be linked to the petitioner’s political opinion:
Persecution is stamped on every page of this record. [Lazo-Majano] has been singled out to be bullied, beaten, injured, raped, and enslaved.... The persecution has been conducted by a member of the Armed Force, a military power that exercises domination over much of El Salvador despite the staunchest efforts of the Duarte government to restrain it. Zuniga had his gun, his grenades, his bombs, his authority and his hold over [Lazo-Majano] because he was a member of this powerful military group.
* * * * * *
[Lazo-Majano] has suffered persecution because of one specific political opinion Zuniga attributed to her. She is, she has been told by Zuniga, a subversive.... If she complained of Zuniga, she was informed, she would be killed as a subversive. One cannot have a more compelling example of a political opinion generating political persecution than the opinion that is held by a subversive in opposition to the government.
Id. at 1434-35.
Angoucheva has relied on Lazo-Majano as support for her past persecution claim since the inception of these proceedings, yet neither the IJ nor the Board have addressed that decision in finding that she failed to establish a pattern or practice of government-inspired persecution. The Service also made no attempt to distinguish Lazo-Maja-no in its briefs to this court, although it cannot deny that the ease would seem to be highly relevant to Angoueheva’s current claim. Although Angoucheva suffered but one sexual assault, as opposed to the repeated rapes and abuse endured by Lazo-Majano, the link between that assault and Angoueheva’s political opinions would seem more direct than the link found to exist in Lazo-Majano as a matter of law;. Angouche-va’s reliance on Lazo-Majano therefore raises important and difficult questions that I would expect the Board to address. See also, e.g., Lopez-Galarza v. INS, 99 F.3d 954, 960 (9th Cir.1996) (finding that petitioner had been persecuted on account of political opinion when she had been imprisoned and raped as a result of her perceived opposition to a *794governing political regime); In re D-V-, Interim Decision 3252 (BIA May 25, 1993) (approving asylum application where applicant had been gang-raped and beaten by Haitian soldiers who believed she was a supporter of deposed President Aristide).
In the end, I believe that a reasoned treatment of Angoucheva’s asylum application, particularly her reliance on the sexual assault by a State Security officer in the course of an official interrogation about her political activities, requires something more than the dismissive single-sentence “observation” given it by the IJ and the Board here. See, e.g., Hengan, 79 F.3d at 63; Bastanipour v. INS, 980 F.2d 1129, 1132 (7th Cir.1992). I for one am not convinced that the Board would view Angoucheva’s application in the same way if it eliminated the irrelevant considerations highlighted by the immigration judge and truly grappled with the difficult issues that Angoucheva actually raises. See Hengan, 79 F.3d at 64; cf. Urukov v. INS, 55 F.3d 222, 230 (7th Cir.1995) (affirming order deporting member of different Ilinden organization, but urging Board, “in the strongest terms possible, to re-examine” the petitioner’s application for asylum). With these additional observations, then, I join the court in vacating the Board’s order and in remanding for further proceedings.

. The finding could also mean, however, that the sexual assault was being viewed only as an isolated incident, and that it was insufficient to establish a pattern or practice of persecution. Yet the applicable regulations suggest that if an applicant already has been singled out for persecution in her country of origin, then a "pattern or practice” showing is not required. 8 C.F.R. §§ 208.13(b)(2)(i)(A) & 208.16(b)(3).

. According to the INS,
[tjhere is no compelling evidence to establish that the Major harmed the Petitioner because of her political opinion or ethnicity. Nor is there compelling evidence to show that the Bulgarian government promoted or condoned the Major's act. Rather, the evidence supports the inference that the Major found the Petitioner sexually attractive.
(Id. at 788.) The Service also does not find it particularly important that the assault occurred in the course of an official interrogation:
Nor does the fact that the Major sexually assaulted the Petitioner at the same time that she was being interrogated for her political activities, compel[] the conclusion that the assault was politically motivated. The Major may have assaulted Petitioner for other reasons, including for example the fact that he found her attractive.
(Id. at 791.)
Like Angoueheva, I was taken aback by the argument that a sexual assault like this one could be attributed to sexual attraction alone. Rape and sexual assault are generally understood today not as sexual acts borne of attraction, but as acts of violent aggression that, stem from the perpetrator’s power over and desire to harm his victim. See, e.g., United States v. Powers, 59 F.3d 1460, 1465-66 (4th Cir.1995) (collecting authorities), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 116 S.Ct. 784, 133 L.Ed.2d 734 (1996); United States v. Hammond, 17 M.J. 218, 220 n. 3 (C.M.A.1984) (one of the “common misconceptions about rape is that it is a sexual act rather than a crime of violence.”); United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ("UNHCR”), Sexual Violence Against Refugees: Guidelines on Prevention and Response, at 1 (Geneva 1995) ("Perpetrators of sexual violence are often motivated by a desire for power and domination. Given these motivating forces, rape is common in situations of armed conflict and internal strife.... Like other forms of torture, it is often meant to hurt, control and humiliate, violating a person's innermost physical and mental integrity.”). I was therefore somewhat surprised that a division of the United States Department of Justice would take a different view. Perhaps the INS merely meant to suggest that the record in this case would support the conclusion that Major Beltchev personally abused the power vested in him as an officer of the Secret Police and that the Bulgarian government neither sponsored nor condoned his actions. See, e.g., In re Kasinga, Interim Decision 3278 (BIA June 13, 1996) (Board recognizes that "persecution can consist of the infliction of harm or suffering by a government, or persons a government is unwilling or unable to control”). That is a slightly more defensible position than suggesting that the authority and power Beltchev held over Angoueheva as a State Security officer had nothing to do with his decision to assault her sexually.