Court Opinion

ID: 9438189
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 05:22:43.028909+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:25:27.871862
License: Public Domain

GOULD, Circuit Judge,
Dissenting:
I respectfully dissent, believing that a rational fact-finder could have found that Rwaril was not credible. See INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 482, 112 S.Ct. 812, 117 L.Ed.2d 38 (1992). Rwaril omitted on his asylum application facts asserted in his hearing testimony to the effect that his mother was raped and killed in the home invasion spurred by the alleged inter-clan conflict. Not recalling such a striking fact in his application, one that the common experience of mankind would suggest is a superordinate instance of persecution, renders Rwaril’s story suspect. The IJ permissibly could determine him not to be credible, thinking that this part of his story was added as an embellishment in hearing testimony. For this and other reasons stressed by the government, the record does not compel us to grant Rwaril’s petition. We make a practical mistake by shifting the responsibilities of the Executive Branch, and a part of it, the BIA, steeped in immigration lore, onto judicial shoulders.