Volkova

MEMORANDUM ****

Natalia Volkova, a native of the Ukraine, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) order affirming the Immigration Judge’s (IJ) denial of her application for asylum and withholding of deportation. Volkova, a Pentecostal Christian, first applied for asylum in June 1998, on the basis of religious persecution. Although the IJ in that proceeding found that Volkova had shown a history of past religious persecution in the Ukraine before the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, he also found that there had been a substantial change in circumstances since that time and that Volkova no longer had a well-founded fear of future persecution. On this basis, the IJ denied her application, and we affirmed that denial in 2003.

Volkova filed a motion to reopen her application, arguing that conditions in the Ukraine have deteriorated for members of *158 her religious group since the first hearing on her application. The BIA reopened Volkova’s deportation proceedings and remanded to the IJ to consider whether country conditions had worsened for Pentecostal Christians in the Ukraine since the earlier hearing. The IJ found there had been no…