Lopez-Cabrera

MEMORANDUM *

Lopez-Cabrera appeals the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) denial of her application for asylum. We conclude that Lopez-Cabrera was denied her due process right to respond to the BIA’s independent credibility findings. We remand for an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) to make a new credibility finding. Because the parties are familiar with the record, we recount facts only as necessary to explain our decision.

The IJ’s adverse credibility finding was, as the BIA recognized, based only “on speculative assumptions not supported by the record.” Aside from speculation, the *642 IJ’s adverse credibility finding consisted of unsupported invective quite beyond the bounds of appropriate professional discourse. Although it correctly recognized that the IJ’s credibility determination was not entitled to deference, the BIA chose to make its own credibility finding.

Ordinarily, the BIA can make an adverse credibility finding based on reasons divergent from those advanced by the IJ for disbelieving the petitioner. See Pal v. INS, 204 F.3d 935, 938-39 (9th Cir.2000). We ruled in Mendoza Manimbao v. Ashcroft, 298 F.3d 852 (9th Cir.2002), however, that the IJ must have “previously…