Levitskaya

MEMORANDUM *

Petitioner Valentina Levitskaya, a native and citizen of the Ukraine, appeals a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) denying her application for asylum and withholding of deportation pursuant to sections 208(a) and 243(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), 8 U.S.C. §§ 1158 (a), 1253(h). Levitskaya entered the United States at New York, New York, in August 1993 as a non-immigrant visitor, intending to visit family members who had emigrated from the Ukraine as refugees in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She submitted her request for asylum to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) in April 1994. Her application was referred to an Immigration Judge (“IJ”), on September 15, 1994, and an order to show cause issued.

Levitskaya argued before the IJ that she had suffered past persecution by the Ukrainian government, due to her Pentecostal Christian religious beliefs, and that she feared future persecution by the government as well as by organized criminals. The IJ determined that Levitskaya’s testimony regarding her past persecution was not credible and rejected her petition. The BIA reversed the IJ’s credibility determination but…