Khadija Mohammed v. Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney General, Khadija Ahmed Mohamed v. Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney General

Female genital mutilation involves the cutting and removal of all or some of a girl or a woman’s external genitalia. Often performed under unsanitary conditions with rudimentary instruments, the procedure is “extremely painful” and “permanently disfigures the female genitalia ... exposing] the girl or woman to the risk of serious, potentially life-threatening complications.” In re Kasinga, 21 I. & N. Dec. 357, 361 (BIA 1996); see also Abay v. Ashcroft, 368 F.3d 634, 638 (6th Cir.2004); Abankwah v. INS, 185 F.3d 18, 23 (2d Cir.1999). Khadija Ahmed Mohamed, a native and citizen of Somalia, seeks to reopen her asylum, withholding of removal, and Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) claims on the basis of her first attorney’s failure to present evidence that she suffered this grave harm in the past. We must consider whether the attorney’s failure to raise the issue of the genital mutilation to which Mohamed had been-subjected as a child constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel sufficient to warrant reopening.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Mohamed applied for asylum when she was seventeen years old. She claimed that she had a well-founded fear of future persecution on…