Court Opinion

ID: 9497717
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:58:08.843508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:22.220241
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the majority's thoughtful opinion. I write separately to indicate my concerns regarding the record presented to this court, and to underscore that our decision is not intended to trivialize the plight of minority clan members in Somalia
I must agree that Aden's statements at various times were inconsistent and that these inconsistencies gave the immigration judge ("IJ") "specific, cogent reason[sJ" to find her testimony not credible. Perinpanathan v. INS, 310 F.3d 594, 597 (8th Cir.2002) (quoting Ghasemimehr v. INS, 7 F.3d 1389, 1391 (8th Cir.1993)). It would have been very helpful had the IJ taken the time at the hearing to attempt to resolve the inconsistencies. Unfortunately, she imposed rather severe time limitations on the proceedings,2 and Aden never was able to reconcile her differing accounts of persecution.
Aden's testimony before the IJ was that her brother was killed and she was beaten and raped during a home invasion at her family residence in Bardhere.3 She asserted that this occurred because of her membership in the minority Tunni clan. In an earlier interview with an asylum officer, Aden claimed that she and her family fled Bardhere by car, but that the vehicle ran out of gas about forty kilometers out of town. She stated to the officer that she and others then traveled to a nearby village, where she was beaten and raped on account of her clan membership. The asylum officer's handwritten and typewritten notes indicate nothing about the *970home invasion, a rape in Bardhere, or the death of Aden’s brother. Prior to this interview, however, Aden filed a written asylum application that stated she was beaten and raped at her family’s home in Bardhere by militiamen because of membership in the Tunni clan. Aden did not mention the murder of her brother in this application.
Had Aden been able to prove any of these stories, she would qualify for relief. If she was raped and beaten due to her membership in a minority clan, and if her brother was murdered for similar reasons, she certainly would have established that she was eligible for withholding of removal. See 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A) (stating that the attorney general may not generally remove an alien to a country where the alien’s life or freedom would be threatened due to membership in certain protected classes). Unfortunately, the record does not provide any reasonable explanation for Aden’s markedly inconsistent stories. First, Aden filed her asylum application, which detailed the rape and home invasion; next, in her asylum interview, she changed her narrative entirely, claiming instead she was sexually assaulted during the family’s flight from their home; finally, at the hearing, she reverted to a version that approximated her original account, but supplemented it with the assertion that her brother was murdered during the episode. Given these discrepancies, I cannot fault the IJ for finding Aden not credible. Accordingly, I concur in the majority opinion.

. Although I recognize that efficiency is an important asset to us due to the number of cases that they handle, it is also important to provide asylum applicants, who may be subject to persecution or even death if returned to their home countries, a fair opportunity to present their cases.

. Although the spelling of this city varies throughout the record, I will accept the Ii's use of this spelling in her decision and follow suit.