James Adam v. Eric H. Holder Jr.

MEMORANDUM

James Adam and Mieke Moutje Posumah, natives and citizens of Indonesia, petition pro se for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order dismissing their appeal from an immigration judge’s decision denying their application for withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252 . We review de novo questions of law and for substantial evidence factual findings. Wakkary v. Holder, 558 F.3d 1049, 1056 (9th Cir.2009). We grant in part and deny in part the petition for review, and we remand.

Petitioners testified that, following a speech by a fundamentalist Muslim provocateur, Muslims in Lombok targeted churches and Christians, burning down petitioners’ church and taking most of their possessions, many of which were scattered and burned outside their house. With respect to past persecution, substantial evidence does not support the BIA’s finding that petitioners were merely victims of civil unrest. See Sinha v. Holder, 564 F.3d 1015, 1020-23 (9th Cir.2009) (incidents were not random violence or mere civil unrest where violence did not affect populus as a whole and where individuals of…