Opinion
Argued and Submitted August 24, 2004.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION. (See Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure Rule 36-3)
Jessica Boell, Esq., Portland, OR, for Petitioner.
Regional Counsel, Western Region Immigration & Naturalization Service, Laguna Niguel, CA, Ronald E. Lefevre, Chief Legal Officer, Office of the District Counsel, San Francisco, CA, Mary Jane Candaux, Esq., Deborah N. Misir, Esq., U.S. Department of Justice Civil Div./Office of Immigration Lit., Washington, DC, for Respondent.
On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Agency No. A75-288-803.
Before: SCHROEDER, Chief Judge, GOODWIN, and TASHIMA, Circuit Judges.
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and may not be cited to or by the courts of this circuit except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
Juana Pelico Perez, a citizen of Guatemala, petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals affirming the Immigration Judge's (IJ) order denying her request for asylum and withholding of removal. The BIA disagreed with the IJ's finding of falsified letters, and there is no other express adverse credibility finding.
The IJ disregarded petitioner's testimony that her common law husband had been burned to death by army soldiers, that she had been assaulted and threatened by army soldiers, and that she continued to receive threatening letters from unidentified sources until her departure for the United States in 1996. She established by testimony that we must deem credible that she suffered persecution on the basis of her Quiche Indian ethnicity and imputed support of the guerrillas. The IJ relied strongly on the Country Report to support her decision. The government bears the burden of showing changed country conditions,
Page 644.
however and there must be some individualized showing. See Lopez v. Ashcroft, 366 F.3d 799 (9th Cir.2004). We must remand for resolution of those issues. See INS v. Ventura, 537 U.S. 12, 123 S.Ct. 353, 154 L.Ed.2d 272 (2002) (per curiam).
Petition GRANTED AND REMANDED.