Golkar

MEMORANDUM **

Ahmadreza Golkar, a native and citizen of Iran, petitions for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) order dismissing his appeal from an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) decision denying his application for asylum, withholding of removal and protection under Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture. 1 We review for substantial evidence Golkar’s challenge to the IJ’s adverse credibility determination, Kaur v. Ashcroft, 379 F.3d 876, 884 (9th Cir.2004), and grant the petition for review.

*586 Initially, we note that, as grounds for his adverse credibility finding, the IJ pointed to several minor evidentiary discrepancies which the Government has not addressed or attempted to defend. To the degree these discrepancies exist, none provides a legitimate basis for an adverse credibility finding. At best, any inconsistencies in Golkar’s account of his resistance to enforced daily prayer at his workplace in the early 1980s are minor and do not go to the heart of Golkar’s claim that he has a well-founded fear of persecution based on his conversion to Christianity in the 1990s. See id. at 884-85 . Similarly, the IJ’s conclusion that Golkar would likely have had…

I respectfully dissent. In my view, we are not compelled to find that the Immigration Judge’s (IJ) adverse credibility determination was erroneous. See Mansour v. Ashcroft, 390 F.3d 667, 671 (9th Cir. 2004) (holding that contrary determination must be compelled to reverse the IJ).

If even one of the bases supporting the adverse credibility determination is supported by substantial evidence, the petition for review must be denied. See Li v. Ashcroft, 378 F.3d 959, 964 (9th Cir.2004).

In this case, the one basis supporting the adverse credibility determination is Ahmadrez Golkar’s lack of knowledge regarding baptism, a basic Christian foundational ritual that he professed to have undergone. The majority disposition grants the petition primarily because of its conelusion that the Assessment To Refer in this case was unreliable. However, unlike the Assessment To Refer discussed in Singh v. Gonzales, 403 F.3d 1081 (9th Cir. 2005), the record does not reflect that the Assessment To Refer in this case suffered from the same deficiencies as noted in Singh. See e.g. Singh, 403 F.3d at 1088-89 (noting the apparent lack of a translator).

Because the adverse credibility determination was…