Andres

MEMORANDUM **

Andres Xuncax Luis Baltazar Andres, a native and citizen of Guatemala, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ order summarily affirming the immigration judge’s (“IJ’s”) decision denying his application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252 . We review the IJ’s decision for substantial evidence, Zehatye v. Gonzales, 453 F.3d 1182, 1184-85 (9th Cir.2006), and we grant the petition for review.

The government has conceded that Andres suffered past persecution on account of his ethnicity as a Kanjobal Mayan Indian, and on account of his imputed political opinion for his alleged support of the guerilla forces during the Guatemalan civil conflicts. As a young child, Andres witnessed many atrocities targeting his family; the military buried his cousin in a mine and then blew it up, and the military used machetes to murder his uncle. See Hernandez-Ortiz v. Gonzales, 496 F.3d 1042, 1045-46 (9th Cir.2007).

We conclude that the IJ erred in holding that if Andres established past persecution, the government had rebutted the presumption of a…