Pascual-Garcia

MEMORANDUM *

Alfonso Pascual-Garcia petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision denying his requests for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252 (b) and we grant the petition.

This is a mixed motive case. Although the BIA is correct that PascualGarcia, an indigenous Mayan native of rural Guatemala, may have been persecuted because he witnessed his father’s murder, it disregarded compelling evidence that Pascual-Garcia was also persecuted on the basis of an imputed political opinion. See Sangha v. INS, 103 F.3d 1482, 1489-90 (9th Cir.1997) (imputed political opinion provides basis for asylum relief). To establish eligibility for asylum, Pascual-Garcia needed to show only that he was persecuted, in part, on a statutory ground. See Melkonian v. Ashcroft, 320 F.3d 1061, 1068 (9th Cir.2003); Garcia-Ramos v. INS, 775 F.2d 1370 (9th Cir.1985).

Neither the IJ nor the BIA questioned Pascual-Garcia’s credibility. Pascual-Garcia’s father was a long-time member and prominent leader of the Civil Patrols, a government unit, with a history of confrontations with the…