Zuleta-Aldana

MEMORANDUM *

Marco T. Zuleta-Aldana, a native and citizen of Guatemala, challenges the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) denial of his applications for asylum and withholding of deportation. Zuleta-Aldana testified that after he spoke out against abuses in the National Police force, for which he worked, he was placed under house arrest, transferred to increasingly less desirable and more remote posts, and finally advised that the police planned to kill him. Zuleta-Aldana also testified that he knew his supervisors had the ability and the will to murder him because he had previously witnessed their murder of civilians, and he knew that members of the government had murdered his co-worker. The BIA did not question Zuleta-Aldana’s credibility. Accepting his testimony as true, his statements would ordinarily be sufficient to establish a well-founded fear of persecution. See Argueta v. INS, 759 F.2d 1395, 1397 (9th Cir.1985) (holding that petitioner established well-founded fear as he testified that “death squad” threatened his life and he knew that group killed because it also killed his friend).

The BIA offered three reasons for rejecting Zuleta-Aldana’s claim as not…