Prakash

MEMORANDUM **

Petitioner Neelum Prakash appeals the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision affirming the immigration judge’s denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture. At her asylum hearing, Prakash, a young Indo-Fijian woman, testified that she was raped by five native Fijians on account of her race. The IJ determined that Prakash’s testimony was not credible because she had failed to disclose the alleged rape in her application for asylum or at her asylum interview. The BIA affirmed the IJ’s adverse credibility determination, and Prakash timely petitioned this court for review.

The IJ found Prakash not credible because her testimony at the hearing “differed] in significant respect from her previously filed statement submitted in support of her application for asylum.” Prakash’s declaration did not mention any sexual assault, and the IJ found that she “did not disclose the [rape] to her interviewer at the asylum office, even though she related a similar event that allegedly occurred eight months earlier, which did not result in a rape, when specifically queried by the interviewer regarding a rape.”

Although the IJ thus concluded…