Ranjeet Kaur v. John Ashcroft, Attorney General

379 F.3d 876 Ranjeet KAUR, Petitioner, v. John ASHCROFT, Attorney General, Respondent. No. 02-72302. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted November 7, 2003. Filed August 19, 2004. COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED Earle A. Sylva, Rai Law & Associates, San Francisco, CA, Rohit Dharwadkar, Law Offices of Hardeeep Singh Rai, San Francisco, CA, for the petitioner. Ronald E. LeFevre, Office of the District Counsel, San Francisco, CA, Richard M. Evans and Joan E. Smiley, Office of Immigration Litigation, Washington, DC, for the respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Agency No. Agk-tan-zbd. Before: CANBY, W. FLETCHER, and TALLMAN, Circuit Judges. WILLIAM A. FLETCHER, Circuit Judge: 1 Ranjeet Kaur petitions for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") upholding the Immigration Judge's ("IJ") denial of her application for asylum and withholding of removal, and denial of her motion to remand to the IJ to apply for relief under the Convention Against Torture ("CAT"). Because we find that the BIA's asylum decision was not based on substantial evidence, we grant the petition and remand to the BIA…

Ranjeet Kaur petitions for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) upholding the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) denial of her application for asylum and withholding of removal, and denial of her motion to remand to the IJ to apply for relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). Because we find that the BIA’s asylum decision was not based on substantial evidence, we grant the petition and remand to the BIA for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. Background

Ranjeet Kaur is a Sikh and a native and citizen of India. She entered the United States illegally in July 1996 and was placed in removal proceedings the following year. After admitting removability, Kaur filed for asylum and withholding of removal. She testified before the IJ that in 1995 she was imprisoned, beaten, and raped in India because the police wrongly imputed her father’s alleged connections to Sikh militants to her. The IJ denied Kaur’s application for asylum and withholding of removal because he found that her testimony was not credible. The BIA affirmed the IJ’s credibility finding. It held, further, that even if Kaur were found to be credible, the weaknesses in her testimony…

dissenting:

The central issue in this appeal is whether the immigration judge’s adverse credibility determination is supported by “specific, cogent” reasons that are “substantial and bear a legitimate nexus to the finding.” Salaam v. INS, 229 F.3d 1234, 1238 (9th Cir.2000) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). In order to grant Kaur’s petition we must determine that her evidence “was so compelling that no reasonable factfinder could fail to find the requisite fear of persecution.” INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 483-84 , 112 S.Ct. 812 , 117 L.Ed.2d 38 (1992); see also id. at 481 n. 1, 112 S.Ct. 812 (“[W]e must find that the evidence not only supports [granting the petition], but compels it....”) (emphasis in original). Here, the court fails to apply this extremely deferential standard of review, a standard which is especially appropriate when we review credibility findings. See Farah v. Ashcroft, 348 F.3d 1153, 1156 (9th Cir.2003). Because on this record a “reasonable finder of fact would not be compelled to conclude that [her] claim is credible,” Singh-Kaur v. INS, 183 F.3d 1147, 1153 (9th Cir.1999), I would deny Kaur’s petition for review.

The IJ made his…