Gill

MEMORANDUM **

Kulwant Singh Gill petitions for review of the Bureau of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) summary affirmance of an Immigration Judge’s (IJ) decision denying his application for asylum. We grant the petition for review and remand for further proceedings.

The BIA’s summary affirmance included a footnote stating that it did not affirm the IJ’s adverse credibility determination. While the inclusion of that footnote violated the BIA regulation governing decisions affirming without opinion, see Kumar v. Gonzales, 439 F.3d 520, 523 (9th Cir.2006) (citing 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1 (e)(4)), Gill does not argue that he was “prejudiced by the footnote or that the violation of the regulation affected the outcome of the proceedings,” id. at 524 .

Gill argued, before the IJ, in his Notice of Appeal, and before this court, that he was persecuted on the basis of an imputed political opinion when he was mistaken for a Sikh militant with the same name. The IJ determined that Gill could not have been persecuted on the basis of a protected ground because his was just a case of mistaken identity. Although we recognize that “[i]n establishing an imputed political opinion, the focus of inquiry turns…