Court Opinion

ID: 9472966
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:15:45.991277+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:14.982273
License: Public Domain

BOOCHEVER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the court’s conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to support the BIA’s determination that the government met its burden of proof in this case. In my view, the majority did not accord the exhaustive, scholarly BIA opinion, decided by a unanimous five member board, the deference it deserved under this circuit’s prior decisions on the standard of review of administrative decisions.
I. Standard of Review
As the majority correctly states, in reviewing the BIA deportation decision, we must consider whether there is reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence in the record, when considered as a whole, to support a finding that each material fact has been established by clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence. Woodby v. INS, 385 U.S. 276, 281-83, 87 S.Ct. 483, 485-87, 17 L.Ed.2d 362 (1966). When the Board disagrees with the administrative law judge, the reviewing court may look harder at the Board’s findings of fact than if they were in accord with the officer’s findings. Loomis Courier Serv. v. NLRB, 595 F.2d 491, 496 (9th Cir.1979); Penasquitos Village, Inc. v. NLRB, 565 F.2d 1074, 1078 (9th Cir.1977). However, such disagreement does not alter the basic standard of review. NLRB v. Tischler, 615 F.2d 509, 511 (9th Cir.1980); NLRB v. Warren L. *1438Rose Castings, Inc., 587- F.2d 1005, 1008 (9th Cir.1978).
Having said this, the majority proceeds to alter the standard, incorrectly treating the Immigration Judge’s (IJ’s) findings with deference, and according none at all to the BIA’s decision. The proper method of review is to treat the IJ’s findings as part of the whole record on appeal. Penasquitos, 565 F.2d at 1078, quoting Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U.S. 474, 496, 71 S.Ct. 456, 468, 95 L.Ed. 456 (1951). Weight may be given to the IJ’s determinations of credibility, because those are inferences he or she draws from observation of the witnesses’ demeanor. Penasquitos, at 1078. However, the IJ’s determinations of credibility are not conclusive on the Board, and no special deference is given to the derivative inferences the IJ draws from the findings of fact. Id. at 1079. The basic standard of review remains unchanged by the disagreement between the judge and the Board: if the judge and the Board interpret the evidence differently, we cannot choose freely between the two interpretations. So long as the Board’s decision is supported by substantial evidence, Congress has mandated that we defer to the Board and affirm. 8 U.S.C. § 1105a(a) (1982);1 Universal Camera, 340 U.S. at 488, 71 S.Ct. at 464, Tischler, 615 F.2d at 511.
II. The Statute
As stated in the BIA opinion, section 241(a)(19) of the Immigration and Nationality Act contains four requirements for deportability:
(1) “under the direction of, or in association with — the Nazi government of Germany, [or] any government in any area occupied by the military forces of the Nazi government of Germany,” the respondent (2) “assisted or otherwise participated in” (3) “the persecution of any person” (4) “because of ... political opinion.”
The majority concedes that Laipenieks worked under the direction of the Nazi government. It does not seriously question that that government participated in the persecution of communists because of their political beliefs. The majority, however, questions the finding that Laipenieks individually assisted or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person because of political beliefs.
Regardless of the unpopularity of communism in our society, the persecution of a person because of communist beliefs is proscribed by the statute. There was ample convincing evidence that Laipenieks participated and assisted in the persecution of individuals because they were communists.
III. The Evidence

A. The Eyewitnesses

The IJ and the majority discounted the testimony of all the witnesses except Laipenieks himself. As to the nine witnesses whose testimony was videotaped in the Soviet Union, the IJ found insufficient guarantees of trustworthiness. The Soviet hearing officer on occasion used prejudicial language, and limited the defense’s cross-examination. From these facts, the IJ drew the inference, which the majority endorses, that the testimony was untrustworthy. The BIA, in contrast, held the testimony useful despite these problems at least to establish certain facts, such as the type and treatment of prisoners at the central prison. If this credibility determination were drawn from demeanor evidence, the IJ’s interpretation would deserve special weight. The determination, however, was based not on demeanor but on facts *1439about the Soviet procedures as well known to the BIA as to the IJ. Thus, we should defer to the BIA’s finding that the deposition testimony credibly showed that people were imprisoned solely on the basis of communist beliefs, unless the shortcomings were so egregious that we can say as a matter of law that the depositions should be disregarded entirely.
Obviously it is difficult to find witnesses of events which occurred over forty years ago, at a location now under Soviet control. That the depositions were taken in Soviet-occupied Latvia may be reason for caution in evaluating the testimony. In this case, however, the manner of conducting these depositions does not warrant their exclusion. Under these circumstances, it was for the BIA to evaluate the credibility of the witnesses and the extent upon which their testimony could be relied.
Specifically, the BIA found that the following facts were established by the eyewitnesses’ testimony and proved that individuals were persecuted by the LPP under the direction of the Nazi EK-2:
Edwards Yirsis was imprisoned for over one year at RCP because he was suspected of being “pro-Soviet.” Edgars Rode was an athletics inspector on a government sports committee during the Soviet occupation of Latvia. There is no suggestion whatsoever that, as an athletics inspector, Rode was in any way involved in inflicting harm or violence on Latvians. Yet, he was imprisoned for approximately one and one-half years. Rode also testified that his fellow prisoners at RCP were held because they were Soviet sympathizers. Prisoner Carlis Smekerstans was released from RCP to work near a concentration camp upon the condition that he have nothing to do with communists, Jews, or any political activities. Nikolays Endelis was imprisoned at RCP and Salaspils concentration camp for approximately three years because he had been an “activist” and a “Stakhanovist” — working at his bicycle factory to simplify and improve their production methods. Again, there is no indication that these activities were in any way criminal. He also testified that among the prisoners at RCP were Komsomol members [persons who provided Latvian youngsters with training, indoctrination, and socialization to become model Soviet-communist citizens — which activities clearly do not rise to the level of criminal conduct]. Karlis Zvirgzds also was imprisoned at RCP and Salaspils concentration camp for three years. He had been a rural farmer and head of the local agricultural committee. He was arrested as a suspected Communist Party member and Soviet sympathizer, and was interrogated by the LPP as to whether he was a communist or Komsomol member. Juris Beikmanis was a Latvian farmer and communist activist who was a prisoner at RCP for several months. He testified that his fellow prisoners were held because they were communist activist [sic], giving as one example a prisoner who had been a local Party organizer. RCP prisoner Janis Otto Ignats testified that his fellow prisoners were political offenders, including Communist Party members, Komsomol members, Young Communist League members, communist activists and trade union members, as well as former Red Guards and militiamen. He defined “activists” as those involved with sports or cultural work.
The BIA also found that the testimony established that LPP interrogation techniques frequently included beatings with fists, blackjacks, or truncheons. Laipenieks admitted that during interrogation of prisoners he sometimes beat them with his hand to “help” the prisoners “to talk”.
Communist activity could lead not only to imprisonment at the Riga Central Prison, but also to execution, or to transfer to a concentration camp. One of the eyewitnesses, a Soviet sympathizer forced by a Nazi death threat to work as a Gestapo-LPP informer, testified that the role of the LPP was to liquidate “the Communist Party and all other groups that were against the German Order.”
To impeach the witnesses the IJ and the majority rely heavily on the various wit*1440nesses’ inability to pick out Laipenieks’ picture from a photo spread. The BIA did not draw as great an inference of untrustworthiness from this failure as did the IJ. Rather than discounting all of the witnesses’ testimony, the BIA chose not to rely on the testimony as to identification of Laipenieks, but to accept testimony by those witnesses on other relevant issues.2
Even if we were to ignore the standard of review and chose freely between the IJ’s and the Board’s inferences from the failure to identify, the Board’s position is the better one of the two. The inability of the witnesses to recognize a photo of someone last seen forty years previously does not seriously impeach their other testimony. This is particularly true because Laipenieks’ prominence as an athlete made him easy to identify at the time of the relevant acts. Moreover, because this is not demeanor evidence, the standard of deference to the BIA requires us to accept its inferences rather than the IJ’s. Thus, these witnesses’ testimony is also competent to establish that people were imprisoned solely on the basis of communist beliefs.

B. The Expert Testimony

The majority’s reversal of the BIA stems, in large part, from the majority’s virtual disregard of the expert evidence, which was not disputed, and on which the BIA relied heavily. The government’s expert witness, Dr. Paul Hilberg, Ph.D, is a noted author and historian of the Nazi era, and has been accepted as an expert historical witness in numerous other cases.3 Additionally, the record before the BIA included copies of several captured Nazi documents relevant to the EK-2 and the LPP. In its lengthy opinion, the majority disposes of the expert testimony in two sentences, stating:
Thus, the expert testimony as to the acts of the LPP is only helpful to the extent it establishes that the organization may have been involved in acts of persecution because of political beliefs. The government must also prove by clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence that Laipenieks persecuted individuals because of political opinion or at least that Laipenieks’ acts led to the persecution of individuals because of political belief.
This facile dismissal ignores the fact that the expert testimony went far toward proving that Laipenieks did indeed assist in the persecution of individuals because of political beliefs. The expert testified, and the BIA found, that the LPP was intimately connected with and established under the German Einsatzkommando 2 (EK-2), a division of the German police force whose primary purpose was to carry out the Nazi policy of eliminating communists and Jews in occupied countries. Because the EK-2 did not have enough German manpower to carry out its goals, the Germans deemed it “necessary that additional security formations be established expeditiously from the ethnic groups of the conquered territories which are acceptable to us, as has already been done to some extent by the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police.” Directive from Reichsfuehrer Himmler (July 25, 1941) (Exh. G-34 to BIA opinion). The LPP was formed to fill this need in Latvia, *1441and was organized in a parallel fashion to the German police units.
The BIA noted that “[t]he paramount principle in organization of the [LPP] was that they were fully under the control of, subordinate to, and received orders from, the Nazi police authorities.” The LPP was the implementing force of the EK-2. LPP officials took orders directly from the Nazi police, and their salaries were paid out of the EK-2 budget. The purpose of the LPP’s formation was “above all to eliminate those elements who tried to hide their communist beliefs.” The LPP had no mission independent of this Nazi goal. After investigating, arresting, and interrogating suspected communists, often by means of physical brutality, LPP officers such as Laipenieks, by his own admission, would turn the files over to the EK-2 with a recommendation about each prisoner’s fate. Thus expert testimony clearly and convincingly established that the LPP, and Laipenieks as an LPP officer, persecuted individuals because of political belief.
The majority, in its statement of facts, characterizes the LPP as “an organization formed to investigate and arrest individuals who had participated in the atrocities during the Soviet occupation.” This statement is in direct disagreement with both the expert testimony and the BIA’s findings, as summarized above, as to the formation and purpose of the LPP. Once again, the majority fails to follow this circuit’s standard of review in refusing deference to the BIA. In this instance, it cannot be contended that the IJ’s opinion has extra weight, since there was in the record no dispute as to the expert’s credibility.

C. Laipenieks’ Testimony

Laipenieks himself stated that he worked for the LPP investigating “all kinds of communists,” and that the role of the LPP was to pursue communists in Latvia. He attempts to excuse his participation in this persecution by suggesting that his motive was to pursue communist traitors to Latvia who had aided the Soviets in their invasion. That the Nazi’s goal in forming the LPP was to exterminate all communists he characterizes as a coincidence. However, the BIA rejected this argument, properly holding under Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U.S. 490, 101 S.Ct. 737, 66 L.Ed.2d 686 (1981), that the word “assisted” in § 1251(a)(19) does not carry with it any element of intent. In Fedorenko, construing a provision of the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, Pub.L. No. 774, 62 Stat. 1009, 1013, similar to § 1251(a)(19), see Fedorenko, 449 U.S. at 495 nn. 3-4, 101 S.Ct. at 741 nn. 3-4, the Court found that the omission of the word “voluntarily” from the provision “compelled] the conclusion that the statute made all who assisted in the persecution of civilians ineligible for visas.” Id. at 512, 101 S.Ct. at 750. Thus Laipenieks’ personal motives for joining the LPP are irrelevant to the application of § 1251(a)(19). Moreover, the BIA found that although Laipenieks naturally preferred to focus his testimony on his prosecution of communists who had participated in Soviet atrocities, he admitted that he personally investigated all kinds of communists, and acknowledged that some were imprisoned solely on grounds of political beliefs.
The evidence showed that the Germans established the LPP to eradicate all communists in Latvia, because of their political beliefs, and that the LPP implemented that policy. Laipenieks volunteered to work for the LPP, and in doing so assisted in the German plan of persecution. Moreover, he was not a clerk or a janitor. He was an investigator, an interrogator, and the author of recommendations as to the fate of the prisoners.
The majority, however, states that “[w]ithout proof of at least one instance in which Laipenieks’ investigations resulted in the ultimate persecution of an individual because of his political beliefs, we are unable to infer that such occurred.” With all due respect, I believe that in looking for one tree, the majority has lost sight of the forest. Laipenieks joined and worked for a Nazi-run police force whose sole purpose was to pursue communists qua communists. Everything he did while working for the LPP was in furtherance of the Nazi goal of eliminating communists.
*1442CONCLUSION
The government in this case was required to prove by clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence that section 1251(a)(19) applied to Laipenieks. The BIA found that the government had met its burden of proof, and we should defer to the BIA’s decision if there is reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence to support it. On the record, the government presented such evidence.

. (a) The procedure prescribed by, and all the provisions of Chapter 158 of Title 28, shall apply to, and be the sole and exclusive procedure for, the judicial review of all final orders of deportation heretofore or hereafter made against aliens within the United States pursuant to administrative proceedings under section 1252(b) of this title or comparable provisions of any prior Act, except that—
(4) except as provided in clause (B) of paragraph (5) of this subsection, the petition shall be determined solely upon the administrative record upon which the deportation order is based and the Attorney General’s findings of fact, if supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole, shall be conclusive; ...
8 U.S.C. § 1105a(a) (1982).

. The BIA opinion states:
However, in the summaries [of the evidence] which follow, we do not find it necessary to rely on this disputed testimony. Rather, the testimony of these witnesses — all but two of whom were prisoners at RCP — generally will be used only insofar as it illustrates the type of persons who were incarcerated at RCP and what happened to them, or is otherwise not inconsistent with the respondent’s testimony.

. As the BIA noted,
Dr. Hilberg is the author of The Destruction of the European Jews, Exhibit G-27, a scholarly, highly-regarded compendium of his decades of research into the holocaust. He is a doctor of Public Law and Government, McCullough Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont, a noted author, and a presidentially-appointed member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. He has been accepted as an expert historical witness in the following cases: United States v. Osidach, 513 F.Supp. 51 (E.D.Pa.1981); United States v. Linnas, 527 F.Supp. 426 (E.D.N.Y.1981), aff'd, 685 F.2d 427 (2d Cir.1982), rehearing denied, April 5, 1982; United States v. Kosiy, 540 F.Supp. 25 (S.D.Fla.1982); United States v. Palciauskas, 559 F.Supp. 1294 (M.D.Fla.1983).