Court Opinion

ID: 9490857
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:56:38.032776+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:21.360758
License: Public Domain

ROVNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
I agree with my colleagues that the Kossovs are entitled to relief in this Court, but for a different reason. I believe the Immigration Judge’s finding that the Kossovs did not suffer past persecution is not supported by substantial evidence. As the majority points out, the IJ found Lioudmila Kossov to be a credible witness. Incongruously, he found insufficient to establish past persecution her testimony that she was beaten by government agents until she miscarried her unborn child, while the agents taunted her about her religious beliefs. She also testified that she was- threatened by police, detained, interrogated, fired from two jobs, had bank accounts mysteriously closed, and lost her business and her home, all on account of government disapproval of her Evangelical Christian beliefs. I believe this evidence, accepted as true by the IJ, was sufficient to demonstrate past persecution. See Angoucheva v. INS, 106 F.3d 781, 789-90 (7th Cir.1997). Having, shown past persecution, the Kossovs are entitled to a rebuttable presumption in favor of granting asylum, which may be overeóme by evidence suggesting that conditions in their home country have changed to such an extent that the Kossovs no longer are in danger of persecution there. Id., 106 F.3d at 788.
The only evidence purporting to address present conditions in Latvia was a report from the State Department concluding that Evangelical Christians no longer face persecution in Latvia: “[Lioudmila’s] description of the treatment of Evangelical Christians by the Soviet regime is generally consistent with country conditions for the 1970’s and early 1980’s. This is no longer the ease in Latvia, a country with a Protestant religious tradition, where religious freedom prevails.” Letter from United States Department of State, Office of Asylum Affairs, February 7, 1996, Record at p. 146. I doubt that the State Department’s letter would overcome the presumption in the Kossovs’ favor, however, because the beating that caused the miscarriage occurred in 1988, and much of the maltreatment that the Kossovs described occurred in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, years after the State Department reported that Evangelical Christians were no longer at risk for such treatment in Latvia. This seriously calls into question the accuracy of the State Department report. Moreover, as the Lautenberg Amendment demonstrates, Congress itself disagrees with the State Department’s assessment of the situation in Latvia. Although-that Amendment does not directly apply to the Kossovs’ case, the Amendment evidences Congress’ belief that Evangelical Christians living in Latvia continue to be “targets of persecution.” See 8 U.S.C. § 1167, as. amended by Pub.L. 101167, Title V, § 699D, Nov. 21,1989, 103 Stat. 1261, and subsequent enactments. I believe that on reinand, the IJ should analyze the claim by granting the Kossovs the presumption in favor of asylum to which they are entitled, arid by allowing the INS to present whatever evidence it has to rebut that presumption.