Matter of Pula
| Decision Date | 22 September 1987 |
| Docket Number | Interim Decision Number 3033,A-26873482. |
| Parties | MATTER OF PULA In Exclusion Proceedings |
| Court | U.S. DOJ Board of Immigration Appeals |
In a decision dated December 1, 1986, the immigration judge found the applicant excludable under sections 212(a)(19) and (20) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182(a)(19) and (20) (1982). He granted the applicant's applications for withholding of deportation to Albania and Yugoslavia under section 243(h) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1253(h) (1982), but he denied the applicant's application for asylum under section 208 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1158 (1982), and ordered that the applicant be excluded and deported from the United States. The applicant has appealed from the denial of his application for asylum. The Immigration and Naturalization Service has appealed from the grant of the application for withholding of deportation to Yugoslavia. The applicant's appeal will be sustained, and the Service's appeal will be dismissed.1
The applicant is a 26-year-old married male native of Albania and citizen of Yugoslavia. He arrived in the United States on June 5, 1986, and was placed in exclusion proceedings. The applicant does not contest on appeal his excludability under sections 212(a)(19) and (20) of the Act. We are satisfied from a review of the record that the applicant received a fair hearing and that his excludability has been clearly established. The only issues to be decided by the present appeal are whether the immigration judge's denial of asylum and grant of withholding of deportation to Yugoslavia were proper.
The applicant testified that he was born in Albania and fled to Yugoslavia with his family as a refugee when he was 5 years old. He said that he left Yugoslavia in 1986 to avoid further encounters with police officials who, on numerous occasions since 1979, had detained, interrogated, and physically abused him for hours or days at a time. He stated that the police insisted that he was involved in the political activities of the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia, although he denied the accusation. He said that the police sought information from him about such matters as his contacts with his Albanian family and friends, Albanian anti-government demonstrations, and discussions among local Albanian university students. He also testified that one of the periods of detention occurred in 1982 after he approached Yugoslav authorities to request travel documents to visit his sister in the United States. The applicant explained that the police accused him of planning to go to the United States to participate in anti-Yugoslav demonstrations with Albanians here.
The applicant further advised that in 1985 Yugoslav authorities did issue him a titre de voyage2 so he could travel out of the country, but the American Embassy denied his application for a visa. According to the applicant, he was told at the embassy that the titre de voyage did not guarantee his return to Yugoslavia. The applicant testified that he subsequently relinquished his refugee status and reluctantly accepted Yugoslav citizenship in order to qualify for a Yugoslav passport. He said that he left Yugoslavia on April 20, 1986, as soon as he managed to obtain the passport. He stated that he took a train to Brussels, Belgium, although he had made application to Yugoslav authorities only for permission to visit Turkey. He testified that he believed that the authorities would have denied him the passport if they had known that he intended to go to the United States. He also said that he was afraid to apply again for a visa at the American Embassy because most of the employees there were Yugoslav nationals who might be agents for the Government of Yugoslavia.
In addition, the applicant testified that he stayed in Brussels for 6 weeks with a man who had been a friend of his family in Albania and Yugoslavia. He said that his friend made a telephone call on his behalf to a refugee organization in Italy to inquire about whether he could obtain residency in an Italian refugee camp. According to the applicant, his friend was informed by the organization that citizens of Yugoslavia were not accepted as refugees in European states. The applicant also said that while he was in Brussels he applied for a tourist visa at the American Embassy, but his application was denied and he was told to go to Yugoslavia to apply for a visa. He testified that he did not ask for asylum at the American Embassy because he did not know that he could do so.
The applicant also stated that one day while he was discussing his situation in an Albanian coffee house in Belgium, a stranger there offered to sell him a titre de voyage for $1,000. He said that he gave the man his photograph and paid him the money 2 days later, when he returned with a titre de voyage issued by the Government of Belgium which had a tourist visa to the United States already entered. The applicant advised that the titre de voyage had been issued in the name of someone whom he did not know.
The applicant further testified that on June 5, 1986, he flew with his titre de voyage from Belgium to New York. He said that during a 2- to 3-hour stopover at the airport in Amsterdam, he mailed his Yugoslav passport to a cousin in the United States to avoid having it in his possession when he landed in New York. He explained that his inability to speak English made him concerned that immigration officials might discover the passport and put him on a plane to Yugoslavia before he could tell them about his desire for asylum. The applicant also stated that he did not dispose of the Yugoslav passport altogether because he planned to use it later to corroborate his account of events for his asylum request. In addition, the applicant advised that when he arrived in New York, language differences did in fact prevent him and the immigration officer from communicating and, as a result, he did not tell the officer anything or sign any statements.
The applicant also testified that he chose to flee to the United States because he had relatives here. He stated that he had a sister and two uncles who were lawful permanent residents of the United States, and cousins who were United States citizens. He further advised that his wife, who was still living in Yugoslavia with their daughter, also had an uncle and cousins in the United States. The record reflects that many of the applicant's relatives traveled from such places as upstate New York, Texas, and California on multiple occasions to attend the applicant's hearings in New York City.
In his decision, the immigration judge stated that if the facts as described by the applicant were true, they established without a doubt that the applicant had been persecuted in the past and faced a clear probability of persecution in the future. The immigration judge then made a specific finding that the applicant's testimony was credible, noting that he had observed the applicant testify for approximately 8 hours over a period of 2 days. He accordingly found that the applicant had established his eligibility for withholding of deportation to Yugoslavia and Albania. The immigration judge further found, however, that the applicant was not eligible for asylum as a matter of discretion because the equity of his many relatives legally in the United States did not overcome the adverse factor of his having sought admission to the United States by use of a purchased travel document.
On appeal, the Service contends that the applicant has not established his eligibility for asylum or withholding of deportation to Yugoslavia because his testimony is not credible. It is argued that the applicant's persecution claim rests primarily on his own self-serving statements, that discrepancies exist between his testimony and his written asylum application, and that some of the facts to which he testified, such as his receipt of Yugoslav citizenship and a Yugoslav passport, are inconsistent with a clear probability or a well-founded fear of persecution. In addition, the Service maintains that the immigration judge correctly denied asylum in the exercise of discretion because the applicant sought admission to the United States with a false travel document.
The applicant asserts on appeal that there is no basis to disturb the immigration judge's credibility finding, and that he merits asylum on both statutory and discretionary grounds. He contends that the immigration judge gave undue weight to his manner of attempted entry in denying asylum in the exercise of discretion. He argues that in Matter of Salim, 18 I&N Dec. 311 (BIA 1982...
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