Patricia Ramirez Rivas v. Immigration & Naturalization Service

Patricia Ramirez Rivas petitions for review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denying her withholding of deportation and asylum. We grant the petition for review and reverse the BIA’s decision on both withholding of deportation and asylum.

FACTS

Petitioner Patricia Ramirez Rivas left El Salvador in February of 1983, when she was fifteen years old. She has a mother and father, seven brothers and sisters, and a half-brother. She has an aunt Elena and an uncle Florencio, who had six children. Their children (Ms. Ramirez’s cousins), and Ms. Ramirez’s siblings all grew up in Chan-gallo, a village of about one hundred inhabitants. The other relatives whose stories are relevant to this case are two uncles, Erik and Ivan.

Several of Ms. Ramirez’s relatives were politically active. All six of her first cousins engaged in guerrilla activities. One of them, Balerío, was killed in combat. Another, Luis, was a combatant, but he did not die in combat. One night in August of 1980, he was dragged from his home and murdered by Salvadoran security forces, known as “death squads.” Two of Ms. Ramirez’s brothers were guerrillas, and one of them, Salomon, died in combat. Her…