Abrahim Baballah Ula Baballah Ahmad Baballah v. John Ashcroft, Attorney General

Abrahim Baballah, a native and citizen of Israel, and his wife and oldest child, petition for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming the denial of their application for asylum and withholding of removal. Over a ten-year period, Israeli Marines repeatedly threatened and attacked Baballah on account of his ethnicity and religion. The violence that he experienced not only caused him to fear serious bodily harm and death but also resulted in serious economic hardship. Although the immigration judge (“U”) deemed Baballah credible, she found that his encounters with the Israeli Marines did not rise to the level of persecution required to qualify for asylum. We conclude that the credible evidence presented by Baballah compels a finding of past persecution, and that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) failed to rebut the presumption of future persecution. Accordingly, we grant the petition and hold that Baballah and his family are eligible for asylum and entitled to withholding of removal.

I.

Abrahim Baballah is an Israeli Arab. Baballah’s parents were the only Jew and Muslim to marry in his hometown of Aka, Israel, a town of…