New 9th Circuit and BIA Immigration Cases

**Credibility; changed country conditions**

The record does not compel a reversal of the IJ’s adverse credibility finding because Barthold concedes that she fabricated part of her story about going into hiding in Haiti for five years and for never coming to the United States before her July 1996 entry. This part of the story was crucial to her claim because “it enhanced the status of prior incidents in her story by showing their profound impact on her subsequent, day-to-day life in Haiti.” However, the BIA erred in holding that Barthold failed to provide evidence
of a material change in conditions in Haiti– in 2003, the IJ found that circumstances in Haiti had improved so that, even accepting Barthold’s original story, she no
longer had a well-founded fear of future persecution. Barthold’s evidence shows that conditions following the 2004 coup of Aristide, who Barthold supported, are materially different from the conditions the IJ found to exist in 2003. On remand, the BIA needs to consider whether Barthold now has a well-founded fear of future persecution in the context of the changed country conditions in Haiti.

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/memoranda/2009/09/24/05-73070.pdf