November 20, 2007:
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit filed an unpublished opinion in the case of Budianto Jong v. Mukasey , No. 05-6499-ag, 2007 U.S.App. LEXIS 27010 (2d Cir. Nov. 20, 2007). An Immigration Judge (IJ) had denied Jong's application for political asylum as well as withholding of removal to Indonesia. The Board of Immigration Appeals had affirmed. Although the IJ had found that Jong's testimony was credible and that "his experiences in Indonesia reflected a pattern of 'prejudice and harassment' against him as an ethnic Chinese Buddhist," the IJ nevertheless found that the incidents did not rise to the level of past persecution. Although the Court agreed that neither "the economic hardships imposed on Jong (by recent government regulations and his apparent need to hire bodyguards) nor the frequent bullying Jong endured by Muslim Indonesian children (some thirty years ago, when he was nine years old) crossed the threshold from harassment to persecution" the Court found that it "cannot agree with the IJ's decision to discount similarly the tragic death of Jong's father, who died after being kidnapped by Muslim Indonesians in 1965 because we find that such a determination may have rested, at least in part, on a premise at odds with intervening case law." Citing Jorge-Tzoc v. Gonzales, 435 F.3d 146, 150 (2d Cir. 2006) and Tao Jiang v. Gonzales, 500 F.3d 137, 141-42 (2d Cir. 2007), the Court remanded this case for the IJ to consider whether the death of Jong's father "resulted in a particularly harsh impact" upon Jong rising to the level of past persecution. Thomas V. Massucci was counsel for the Petitioner.

LINK: http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov:8080/isysnative/RDpcT3BpbnNcU1VNXDA1LTY0OTlfc28ucGRm/05-6499_so.pdf

November 20, 2007:
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit filed an unpublished opinion in the case of He Cheng Riu v. Mukasey, No. 06-3849-ag, 2007 U.S.App. LEXIS 27011 (2d Cir. Nov. 20, 2007). An Immigration Judge (IJ) had denied Riu's application for political asylum. That denial had been upheld by the Board of Immigration Appeals. Riu brought a petition for review before the Second Circuit. On review the Court found that the IJ's analysis of Riu's credibility was flawed and must be remanded. The Court found the IJ to have "misstated the record" regarding Riu's "purported ability to obtain a resident ID card after Chinese authorities sought his arrest," when Riu's resident ID card was actually issued on June 28, 2001, approximately one month before he went into hiding on July 26, 2001 to avoid arrest. The IJ also had claimed that Riu's wife and child still live in China without having been "pressed for payment of the fine" and that his wife has not been "arrested or taken into custody by the authorities." However, Riu's actual testimony was that "while his wife is still living at their home, birth control officials continue to harass her" and a letter from Riu's wife had indicated that "after Riu left China, population control officials 'often came to [their] home to make trouble[].' " The Court also found the IJ's concerns regarding Riu's ability to leave China without trouble to be "insufficiently 'tethered to the evidentiary record' to rise above the level of impermissible speculation." Consequently the Court granted the petition for review and remanded the case for further proceedings. Thomas V. Massucci was counsel for the Petitioner.

LINK: http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov:8080/isysnative/RDpcT3BpbnNcU1VNXDA2LTM4NDlfc28ucGRm/06-3849_so.pdf

August 10, 2007:
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit filed a published opinion in the case of Ying Zheng v. Gonzales, Docket No. 06-2939-ag, 497 F.3d 201 (2d Cir. Aug. 10, 2007). The Immigration Judge (IJ) had denied the Petitioner's application for political asylum and withholding of removal, finding that the Zheng's testimony was not credible and finding that she was not eligible for asylum simply because an intrauterine device (IUD) had been forcibly inserted into her body by Chinese population control officials as a part of the Chinese government's coercive population control program. On appeal, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) assumed that Zheng was credible, but found that the forced IUD insertion was not persecution because she experienced "no significant degree of pain or restriction as a result of the procedure" and because an IUD is "a method of birth control . . . commonly used in this country as well as many other parts of the world." However, the Board had previously found, in an unpublished decision, that a similarly situated asylum seeker had been subjected to persecution. The Second Circuit granted the petition for review, vacated the decision of the BIA upholding an IJ's denial of asylum and withholding of removal and remanded the case to the BIA "so that it might articulate its position concerning whether and under what conditions the forced insertion of an IUD constitutes persecution." Thomas V. Massucci was the attorney for the Petitioner.

July 3, 2007:
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit filed an unpublished opinion in the case of Kun Jie Chen v. Gonzales , No. 06-2729-ag, 227 Fed.Appx. 77 (2d Cir. July 3, 2007). Chen had filed an application to adjust status to a lawful permanent resident before an Immigration Judge (IJ). An Immigration Judge found that Chen's testimony in support of his adjustment of status application (I-485) was inconsistent with his prior applications for asylum and adjustment of status under the Chinese Student Protection Act ("CSPA"), and that the Form I-95A Crewman's Landing Permit submitted in connection with the CSPA application had been significantly altered. Due to these problems and Chen's "inability to explain these discrepancies," the IJ found Chen to be not credible and found that Chen had made willful misrepresentations to immigration officials causing him to be not eligible for adjustment of status to a lawful permanent resident. The BIA affirmed the IJ's ineligibility determination, finding that Chen "did not credibly establish that he was not aware of the willful misrepresentations and altered documents that he submitted with his CSPA application." The Second Circuit found that the IJ's findings lacked substantial evidence because Chen had specifically explained that that a "Foo Chow couple" at a travel agency prepared his asylum and CPSA applications, that the couple instructed him to sign blank forms and assured him that "the rest will be done," and that the couple never translated the completed applications in a language he could understand. Chen also testified that he had no role in altering the Crewman's Landing Permit, he did not ask anyone to alter it, and he had no idea that an altered document would be submitted to the INS. The Court also found the BIA's affirmance of the IJ's decision was the result of improper de novo factfinding by the Board in violation of the Board's regulatory authority. The Second Circuit granted the petition for review, vacated the BIA's decision and remanded for further proceedings. Thomas V. Massucci was the attorney for the Petitioner.