Velauthan

MEMORANDUM **

Suthakaran Velauthan, a native and citizen of Sri Lanka, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) dismissal of his appeal from an Immigration Judge’s (“U”) denial of his application for asylum and withholding of removal. “Where, as here, the BIA adopts the Id’s decision while adding its own reasons, we review both decisions.” Kataria v. INS, 232 F.3d 1107, 1112 (9th Cir.2000). We grant the petition for review and remand for further proceedings.

The BIA erred in adopting the IJ’s conclusion that Velauthan did not demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution by the LTTE on account of imputed political opinion because his dispute with them was grounded in personal revenge. See Lim v. INS, 224 F.3d 929, 934 (9th Cir. 2000) (“the threats to Lim are accurately viewed as ‘revenge plus’ — revenge partly motivated by (and thus on account of) imputed adverse political opinion”). The LTTE visited Velauthan’s home in part to stop his father’s translation services for the Sri Lankan army. The resulting verbal dispute included an expression of political opinion by Velauthan’s father — “[the Tigers] all must get destroyed, then only we could live…