Rita Petrosyan v. Eric H. Holder Jr.

MEMORANDUM

1. Because the REAL ID Act doesn’t apply to Rita Petrosyan’s case, the Board of Immigration Appeals could not demand that she provide evidence to corroborate her credible testimony. See Kataria v. INS, 232 F.3d 1107, 1113 (9th Cir.2000); Ladha v. INS, 215 F.3d 889, 899-901 (9th Cir.2000). Here this error was harmless, as we deny the petition on other grounds.

2. Petrosyan doesn’t qualify for asylum because her testimony failed to establish that the harms she suffered were perpetrated “by the government or forces the government [was] either unable or unwilling to control.” Rahimzadeh v. Holder, 613 F.3d 916, 920 (9th Cir.2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). For example, she couldn’t identify the men who attacked her after she spoke at a political rally, much less show that they were tied to, or their actions were tolerated by, the Armenian government.

3. Because Petrosyan fails to satisfy her burden for asylum, she necessarily fails to satisfy the heavier burden for withholding of removal. See Farah v. Ashcroft, 348 F.3d 1153, 1156 (9th Cir.2003).

4. The BIA didn’t base its denial of Convention Against Torture protection on Petrosyan’s lack of credibility. To…