Mendoza-Pablo v. Holder (PUB)
Past persecution, second hand
Where a pregnant mother is persecuted in a manner that materially impedes her ability to provide for the basic needs of her child, where that child’s family has undisputedly suffered severe persecution, and where the newborn child suffers serious deprivations directly attributable not only to those facts, but also to the material ongoing threat of continued persecution of the child and the child’s family, that child may be said to have suffered persecution and therefore be eligible for asylum under the INA. The IJ wrongly held that Mendoza-Pablo had not been persecuted because he had never personally “witnessed any atrocities” and he was never “personally challenged or confronted” by the Guatemalan military forces that attacked Todos Santos.
A. Wallace Tashima and Johnnie B. Rawlinson, Circuit Judges, and Jed S. Rakoff, Senior District Judge
Dissenting in part, concurring in part, Rawlinson: “I agree in principle that an infant may be subjected to persecution. However, I do not agree that the facts of this case compel a conclusion that Petitioner Juan Ubaldo MendozaPablo was subjected to persecution as an infant.”
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2012/02/07/07-73592.pdf
