Court Opinion

ID: 9631740
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:48:13.610326+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:44.655937
License: Public Domain

TALLMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
On petition for rehearing, the majority now agrees that proof of identity is an element of the petitioner’s asylum claim. Fatah v. Ashcroft, 348 F.3d 1153, 1156 (9th Cir.2003) (citing identity as a key element of the asylum application); Matter of O-D-, 21 I. & N. Dec. 1079, 1081 (BIA 1998) (en banc) (noting that an asylum applicant bears the burden of establishing identity). We also agree that 8 U.S.C. § 1158(d) places no additional burden on an asylum applicant. Rather, as the majority points out, that statutory provision requires the Attorney General to follow certain procedures before granting an asylum application. In interpreting that provision otherwise, the IJ erred.
We disagree on the effect of that error on the IJ’s determination of Kalouma’s credibility. In my view, the IJ’s determination that Kalouma had not proven his identity was supported by substantial evidence in the record, and we can reverse that determination only if Kalouma’s evidence is “so compelling that no reasonable factfinder” could have found otherwise. Garrovillas v. INS, 156 F.3d 1010, 1015-16 (9th Cir.1998). On this record, the IJ raised a legitimate concern over Kalouma’s identity, a concern at the heart of his asylum petition, and the inability to confirm his identity constitutes a cogent and substantial reason supporting the adverse credibility determination. After articulating reasons doubting Kalouma’s identity, the IJ could properly consider the lack of any proffered documentary evidence to corroborate who he says he is. See Li v. Ashcroft, 378 F.3d 959, 964 (9th Cir.2004).
Moreover, even if we put aside the issue of identity, we should nonetheless deny Kalouma’s petition for review because the IJ gave completely independent, sufficiently cogent, and substantial reasons for finding Kalouma incredible, and these findings went to the heart of Kalouma’s asylum application — inconsistencies in the alleged past persecution against him and his family, and questionable fear of future persecution based on race and religion.
The majority fails to credit as an independent ground for denying Kalouma’s petition several specific adverse credibility findings, particularly those based on (1) Kalouma’s conflicting statement in his asylum affidavit that his family was “abducted” when he later testified that his family “voluntarily” left Sudan, (2) Kalouma’s inability to recall more than four incidents of personal mistreatment despite his claim that he had been beaten up many times, (3) Kalouma’s confusing and inconsistent *1081details about his uncle’s alleged torture,1 (4) Kalouma’s omission from Ms asylum application of incidents of mistreatment directed at him,2 (5) Kalouma’s admission to the Border Patrol that he came to the United States for an education,3 and (6) Kalouma’s return to Sudan after 1998 notwithstanding the claimed persecution against him, his uncle, and his sister. Not one of these grounds supporting the adverse credibility determination relates to Kalouma’s inability to prove his identity.
As required by our law, the IJ identified these specific and cogent reasons for disbelieving Kalouma’s credibility, they go to the heart of his claim, and it is improper to disregard them absent evidence compelling us to do so. See Singh-Kaur, 183 F.3d at 1153. Notwithstanding the IJ’s error in statutory interpretation of § 1158(d), we should deny Kalouma’s petition based on the IJ’s sound adverse credibility determination which is adequately supported by substantial evidence in the record, and which is the ground upon which the Board upheld the denial of asylum.
I respectfully dissent.

.In his asylum application, Kalouma stated that he "watched [his] uncle tortured and murdered in his hut in the village,” but at the merits hearing, he testified that his uncle died within the week following the torture. Given an opportunity to explain the inconsistency, Kalouma unsatisfactorily explained that his uncle was beaten in the hut, "so when they beat him he couldn’t survive,” they “had to take, rush him, to hospital!,]” and "it was in the hut.” Id. Prior inconsistent statements are a classic ground to impeach a witness. See United States v. Hale, 422 U.S. 171, 176, 95 S.Ct. 2133, 45 L.Ed.2d 99 (1975) ("A basic rule of evidence provides that prior inconsistent statements may be used to impeach the credibility of a witness.”); Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391, 418-19, 77 S.Ct. 963, 1 L.Ed.2d 931 (1957) ("It is, of course, an elementary rule of evidence that prior statements may be used to impeach the credibility of a criminal defendant or an ordinary witness.”); see also Pal v. INS, 204 F.3d 935, 938 (9th Cir.2000) (concluding that testimony inconsistent with the details of the asylum application supported an adverse credibility finding).

. "Common law traditionally has allowed witnesses to be impeached by their previous failure to state a fact in circumstances in which that fact naturally would have been asserted.” Jenkins v. Anderson, 447 U.S. 231, 239, 100 S.Ct. 2124, 65 L.Ed.2d 86 (1980) (citing 3A J. Wigmore, Evidence § 1042, p. 1056 (Chadbourn rev. 1970)).

. Kalouma conceded he told the Border Patrol agent not that he sought refuge from persecution but that he "came here for an education for four years before returning to Sudan.” The IJ was entitled to consider that prior statement coupled with Kalouma’s long delay in seeking asylum as yet another reason to question the sincerity of the alien’s claim of entitlement to it.