Diaz-Cano

MEMORANDUM **

Given the liberal standard used to construe pro se litigants’ claims, DiazCano sufficiently raised his claim before the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) that the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) used the wrong legal standard in determining whether Diaz-Cano demonstrated a well-founded fear of past persecution. Therefore, he exhausted administrative remedies as to this claim. See Agyeman v. INS, 296 F.3d 871, 878 (9th Cir.2002).

The IJ’s use of the term “severe” in holding that Diaz-Cano failed to establish “severe past persecution” and the IJ’s citation to a case that applies the standard for humanitarian asylum, render it impossible to determine whether he applied the correct legal standard in considering Diaz *708 Cano’s claim of past persecution. We, therefore, remand to the BIA for clarification of the basis of its decision to affirm the IJ. See Recinos De Leon v. Gonzales, 400 F.3d 1185, 1191 (9th Cir.2005).

The IJ did not make an alternative holding that even if Diaz-Cano had demonstrated past persecution, in any event, the government had rebutted the presumption of a well-founded fear of future persecution. The IJ’s reference to the “two-prong ‘reasonable man’…