Belizaire

MEMORANDUM **

Franco Belizaire, a native and citizen of Haiti, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ order dismissing his appeal of the Immigration Judge’s decision that he was not eligible for asylum or entitled to withholding of removal. As the parties are familiar with the facts, procedural history, and arguments, we will not recount them here. We grant the petition for review and remand the case to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this memorandum.

The IJ found Belizaire to be credible. Where “the IJ finds the applicant’s testimony to be credible and the BIA makes no contrary finding, we accept as undisputed the testimony of the applicant.” Baballah v. Ashcroft, 367 F.3d 1067, 1073 (9th Cir.2004). As a result, Belizaire’s testimony that members of the Cannibal Army accused him of being “Lavalas” and then beat him and held him prisoner following that attribution must be accepted as undisputed.

To establish persecution on account of an imputed political opinion, Belizaire must show that his persecutors imputed a political opinion to him and that they acted upon that attribution. Sangha v. I.N.S., 103 F.3d 1482, 1489 (9th Cir.1997). Those…