Fatouma Camara v. Attorney General of the United States

Honorable Louis H. Pollak, Senior Judge of the United*
States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania,
sitting by designation.
PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 07-3892
FATOUMA CAMARA,
Petitioner
v.
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES,
Respondent
On Petition for Review of a Final Order
of the Board of Immigration Appeals
(Agency No. A97 530 153)
Argued Thursday, March 5, 2009
Before: SLOVITER and HARDIMAN, Circuit Judges,
and POLLAK, District Judge*
(Filed: September 4, 2009)
Camille J. Mackler, Esq. [ARGUED]
Law Office of Theresa Napolitano
299 Broadway, Suite 1700
New York, NY 10007
Counsel for Petitioner,
Fatouma Camara

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This case was originally captioned with Michael B.1
Mukasey as United States Attorney General; the current
Attorney General is substituted for the former occupant of that
position pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 25(d).
Except where otherwise noted, the facts in this section2
come from Camara’s testimony in front of the Immigration
Judge, which, for reasons we explain in Section II, infra, we
treat as credible.
2
Jeffrey S. Buckholtz, Esq.
Emily Anne Radford, Esq.
Patrick J. Glen, Esq.
Craig Alan Newell, Jr., Esq. [ARGUED]
United States Department of Justice, Civil
Division Office of Immigration Litigation
Ben Franklin Station
P.O. Box 878
Washington, DC 20044
Counsel for Respondent,
Eric H. Holder
OPINION OF THE COURT
POLLAK, District Judge.
Fatouma Camara (“Camara”) petitions for review of a
decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA” or “the
Board”) denying her application for asylum under the
Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA” or “the Act”), 8 U.S.C.
§ 1101 et seq. Because substantial evidence does not support the
BIA’s conclusion that Camara did not suffer past persecution –
and hence does not have a well-founded fear of future
persecution – we will remand.1
I. Facts
A.2

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In a signed letter dated February 17, 2007, the3
Permanent Secretary of the RDR confirms that Mamadi
“disappeared in strange circumstances during the painful
political events of the year 2002[,]” events in which “several
[RDR] militants and sympathizers were victims of a bloody
repression by the party in power across all of Ivory Coast.” AR
197.
According to Human Rights Watch, the November4
rebellion was followed by a government occupation of Man in
which “dozens of opposition and suspected rebel supporters
were executed in reprisal killings.” AR 268.
3
Camara was born in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in 1980. She
is a Muslim and a member of the Dioulla ethnicity. Her father,
Camara Mamadi (“Mamadi”), was a founding member of the
Rally of the Republicans (“RDR”) political party. The RDR was
a political party in opposition to the government of the Ivory
Coast at the time of the events relevant to this case.
On or about October 29, 2002, a group of men, dressed in
black and armed with rifles, came to Camara’s home in Abidjan.
Camara, her mother, and her father were at the home when the
armed men – whom Camara refers to in her testimony as the
“death squad” – arrived. The men accused Mamadi of
supporting anti-government rebel forces and hiding weapons on
the rebels’ behalf. After searching the home but finding no such
weapons, they nevertheless seized Mamadi and took him away
by force. While leaving with Mamadi, they threatened to return
to make Camara and the rest of her family “disappear” like
Mamadi. Since that moment, neither Camara, her family, nor the
RDR has had any contact with Mamadi.3
After waiting a few days for her father to return home to
Abidjan, Camara, along with the remaining members of her
family, traveled to Man, Ivory Coast, to stay with her father’s
brother. On or about November 18, 2002, anti-government
rebels attacked Man and clashed with forces loyal to the
government. Although civilians were targeted in the attack,4
neither Camara nor her family was harmed.

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The facts in this section are culled from reports by5
Human Rights Watch and the United States Department of State
that are contained in the Administrative Record.
We provided a similar and slightly more detailed history6
of this conflict, though from the perspective of a supporter of the
government, in Konan v. Attorney General,432 F.3d 497 (3d Cir.
2005).
The “death squad” that captured Camara’s father7
appears to have been one of these militias. According to a 2004
Human Rights Watch Report contained in the record, from
September 2002 through January 2003, pro-government militias
of the sort described by Camara committed “summary
executions, political assassinations, torture, rape and other sexual
violence, violations of medical neutrality, the wanton destruction
of civilian property, physical attacks, a crackdown on the press,
and the use of child soldiers.” AR 266-67. That same report
4
On or about January 3, 2003, Camara moved to Guinea,
where her mother left her in the care of a relative. Camara’s new
guardian in Guinea severely abused Camara, both physically and
emotionally, by subjecting Camara to female genital mutilation
(“FGM”); beating Camara with a whip in response to Camara’s
refusal to participate in an arranged marriage; and forbidding
Camara from leaving the guardian’s residence. Sometime in
November 2006, Camara escaped from her residence in Guinea
and hid briefly at a friend’s home. On or about December 25,
2006, Camara flew to John F. Kennedy International Airport
(“JFK”) in New York.
B.5
To put these events in context, we provide a short
summary of the recent history that gave rise to them. On6
September 19, 2002, a rebellion against the Ivory Coast’s
government began in three Ivorian cities: Abidjan, Bouake, and
Korhogo. Many supporters of the RDR joined the rebel forces.
The government encouraged and relied upon pro-government
civilian militia groups to combat the rebels. According to7

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notes that between March 24-26, 2004, “20 individuals
‘disappeared’ after being taken into custody by the security
forces (military, gendarmes, and police), pro-government
militias, and FPI party militants around the time of an anti-
government demonstration planned by opposition groups.” AR
268.
Under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(A)(ii), an alien arriving in8
this country who would normally be subject to expedited
removal is referred to an asylum officer for an interview if the
alien indicates upon arrival that she intends to apply for asylum
or that she fears persecution. “If the officer determines at the
time of the interview that an alien has a credible fear of
persecution,” then the alien is scheduled for further immigration
proceedings; otherwise, the alien is removed from the country
without further review. 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(B).
5
Human Rights Watch, these civilian militias constituted “a
lightly veiled mechanism to intimidate and abuse members of the
political opposition and those who, by virtue of their religion,
ethnicity, and/or nationality were thought to oppose the
government (most notably Muslims, northerners, and West
African immigrants mostly from Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, and
Guinea).”
The rebels were unable to capture Abidjan, and the city
became a central location of the conflict between pro-
government civilian militia groups and those perceived to be
rebels or Muslims. Even after the armed conflict officially
ended in January 2003, the pro-government militias continued to
commit human rights abuses against Muslims and others
perceived to be opponents of the ruling regime.
C.
Camara was detained immediately upon her arrival in
New York on or about December 25, 2006. On January 8, 2007,
she was granted, and passed, a “credible fear” interview with an
asylum officer. On January 10, 2007, Camara was served with8
a Notice to Appear (“NTA”) in Immigration Court in Elizabeth,

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Those reasons are “race, religion, nationality,9
membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” 8
U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A).
6
New Jersey, charging that she was subject to removal. On
January 22, 2007, Camara submitted an application for asylum,
withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention
Against Torture (“CAT”), and her case was assigned to an
Immigration Judge (“IJ”).
In the Immigration Court, Camara argued that she was
entitled to asylum because she faced past persecution and had a
well-founded fear of future persecution for reasons enumerated
in 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). The IJ denied Camara’s petition9
and found, inter alia, that (1) Camara’s alleged past persecution
in Guinea was “irrelevant” to her asylum claim because Camara
is a citizen of the Ivory Coast, and “any persecution claimed by
[Camara] must be from the country of nationality”; (2) Camara
“herself did not sustain any mistreatment in the Ivory Coast”
because her suffering in the Ivory Coast “was the type of
suffering similarly experienced by others who live in a war-torn
area where civil war is in place”; (3) “no objective evidence was
presented” that Camara’s father was abducted “on account of his
ethnicity or religion”; and (4) there was no “objective evidence”
to support a finding that Camara’s fear of future persecution on
account of her religion or ethnicity is “objectively reasonable.”
The IJ concluded that, despite “various outbreaks of disputes and
unrest between these ethnic groups . . . the evidence as a whole
is not inclusive [sic] that the respondent would be mistreated or
harmed if removed to Ivory Coast solely on account of her
ethnicity,” and that therefore Camara did not qualify for asylum
or withholding of removal. The IJ also held that because it could
not conclude that “the respondent would more likely suffer
torture in her country by or with the consent or acquiescence of a
public official acting under color of law,” Camara was not
eligible for relief under the Convention Against Torture.
On June 5, 2007, Camara timely filed an appeal with the
BIA challenging the IJ’s denial of her asylum petition. On

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7
August 31, 2007, the Board dismissed petitioner’s appeal,
holding, inter alia, that (1) petitioner’s persecution in Guinea is
irrelevant to her asylum application; (2) even assuming
arguendo that Camara’s account of her father’s abduction was
entirely credible and that his captors were centrally motivated by
his ethnicity or religion, “their mistreatment of petitioner did not
amount to past persecution”; and (3) Camara “has not shown that
she obtained such notoriety amongst government officials in the
Ivory Coast that she would be singled out by them for
persecution.” Therefore, the BIA concluded, conditions in the
Ivory Coast do not indicate that Camara has a well-founded fear
that returning to the Ivory Coast will result in persecution on
account of her ethnicity or religion.
On September 28, 2007, Camara moved for
reconsideration by the BIA. The BIA denied that petition on
November 5, 2007. In that opinion, the BIA held that the facts
of Konan v. Attorney General of United States, 432 F.3d 497 (3d
Cir. 2005), involved “significantly more severe [harm] than the
harm [Camara] suffered when government officials came to her
house” and that therefore Camara’s “experiences during her
father’s arrest did not constitute persecution.” The BIA also
rejected Camara’s argument that she was a member of a
persecuted social group consisting of her family.
On September 26, 2007, Camara timely filed a petition
for review of the BIA’s August 31, 2007 final order of removal.
She has not filed a petition for review of the BIA’s denial of her
motion to reconsider.
II. Jurisdiction and Standard of Review
We have jurisdiction to review a final order of the BIA
under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. “Ordinarily, Courts of Appeals review
decisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), and not
those of an IJ.” Gao v. Ashcroft, 299 F.3d 266, 271 (3d Cir.
2002). We have jurisdiction to review the opinion of the IJ only
where the BIA has substantially relied on that opinion. See, e.g.,
Xie v. Ashcroft, 359 F.3d 239, 242 (3d Cir. 2004). In the instant
matter, thus, we will review only those portions of the IJ’s

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The INA provides: “When a petitioner seeks review of10
an order [of removal], any review sought of a motion to reopen
or reconsider the order shall be consolidated with the review of
the order.” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(6). Interpreting this provision,
the Ninth Circuit has stated that § 1252(b)(6) “contemplates two
separate petitions for review: one from the BIA’s decision
ordering a petitioner removed and another from the BIA’s
decision denying a motion to reopen or reconsider.” Dela Cruz
v. Mukasey, 532 F.3d 946, 948 (9th Cir. 2008) (citing Stone v.
INS, 514 U.S. 386, 394 (1995)); see also Plasencia-Ayala v.
Mukasey, 516 F.3d 738, 744 (9th Cir. 2008) (“The BIA’s
decision to grant or deny a motion to reconsider is treated as a
separate and independent ‘final order’ for which the alien can
seek judicial review.”). Because Camara has not petitioned for
review of the decision denying her motion to reconsider, we lack
jurisdiction to review it.
8
opinion that the BIA has specifically adopted. Because
petitioner did not appeal the BIA’s denial of her motion for
reconsideration, we will not review that decision.10
We affirm any findings of fact supported by substantial
evidence and are “bound by the administrative findings of fact
unless a reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to arrive at a
contrary conclusion.” Yan Lan Wu v. Ashcroft, 393 F.3d 418,
421 (3d Cir. 2005) (citations omitted). Whether Camara has met
her burden of showing a well-founded fear of future persecution
“is a question of fact, and the agency determination must be
upheld if it is supported by ‘substantial evidence’ in the record.”
Gomez-Zuluaga v. Attorney General of the United States, 527
F.3d 330, 340 (3d Cir. 2008) (citations omitted).
In conducting our review, we will treat Camara’s
testimony as credible. Under the Act, “if no adverse credibility
determination is explicitly made, the applicant or witness shall
have a rebuttable presumption of credibility on appeal.” 8
U.S.C. § 1158 (b)(1)(B)(iii). Neither the IJ nor the BIA made a
determination that Camara was not credible.

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9
III. Analysis
The Attorney General has the discretion to grant asylum
to any alien who “is a refugee within the meaning of section
1101(a)(42)(A)” of the Act. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(A). Section
1101(a)(42)(A) defines a refugee as:
any person who is outside any country of such
person’s nationality or, in the case of a person
having no nationality, is outside any country in
which such person last habitually resided, and who
is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or
unwilling to avail himself or herself of the
protection of, that country because of persecution
or a well-founded fear of persecution on account
of race, religion, nationality, membership in a
particular social group, or political opinion.
8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). “The asylum applicant bears the
burden of establishing that he or she falls within this statutory
definition of ‘refugee.’” Abdille v. Ashcroft, 242 F.3d 477, 482
(3d Cir. 2001) (citing 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(a) (2000)).
Under the statute, a petitioner can establish eligibility for
asylum in one of two ways: (1) by showing past persecution, or
(2) by showing a well-founded fear that she would be persecuted
in the future if returned to her country of nationality.
Interpreting the first of those two avenues towards relief,
we have stated:
In order to establish eligibility for asylum on the
basis of past persecution, an applicant must show
“(1) an incident, or incidents, that rise to the level
of persecution; (2) that is ‘on account of’ one of
the statutorily-protected grounds; and (3) is
committed by the government or forces the
government is either ‘unable or unwilling’ to
control.”

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10
Abdulrahman v. Ashcroft, 330 F.3d 587, 592 (3d Cir. 2003)
(citations omitted). Regardless of past persecution, “[a]n
applicant can demonstrate that she has a well-founded fear of
future persecution by showing that she has a genuine fear, and
that a reasonable person in her circumstances would fear
persecution if returned to her native country.” Gao v. Ashcroft,
299 F.3d 266, 272 (3d Cir. 2002).
Although these two roads to asylum are doctrinally
distinct from one another, they intersect. Unlike a demonstration
of a well-founded fear of future persecution – which, without
more, entitles an applicant to asylum – a demonstration of past
persecution can be rebutted by the government if the government
“establishes by a preponderance of the evidence that the
applicant could reasonably avoid persecution by relocating to
another part of his or her country or that conditions in the
applicant’s country have changed so as to make his or her fear
no longer reasonable.” Abdulrahman, 330 F.3d at 592 n.3
(citing 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(1)(i-ii)). Put differently, “a showing
of past persecution raises a presumption of a well-founded fear
of future persecution” that shifts the burden of proof to the
government. Id. at 592 (citing 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(1)).
Ultimately, therefore, a well-founded fear of future persecution
is the touchstone of asylum.
In Fatin v. I.N.S., we defined persecution as “threats to
life, confinement, torture, and economic restrictions so severe
that they constitute a threat to life or freedom.” 12 F.3d 1233,
1240 (3d Cir. 1993). Importantly, “the concept of persecution
does not encompass all treatment that our society regards as
unfair, unjust, or even unlawful or unconstitutional.” Id.
A.
In the August 2007 opinion that is currently presented for
our review, the BIA considered Camara’s experiences in
Abidjan, Man, and Guinea, and found that Camara did not
experience “past persecution” as defined by the Act in any of
those three locations. As a threshold matter, the BIA found that
Camara’s experiences in Guinea are not relevant to her asylum

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11
application.
We agree that petitioner’s experiences in Guinea, though
tragic, do not qualify her for asylum. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b), a
regulation implementing the Act, provides:
(1) Past persecution. An applicant shall be found to
be a refugee on the basis of past persecution if the
applicant can establish that he or she has suffered
persecution in the past in the applicant’s country of
nationality or, if stateless, in his or her country of
last habitual residence, on account of race,
religion, nationality, membership in a particular
social group, or political opinion, and is unable or
unwilling to return to, or avail himself or herself of
the protection of, that country owing to such
persecution. . . . .
(2) Well-founded fear of persecution.
(i) An applicant has a well-founded
fear of persecution if:
(A) The applicant has a
fear of persecution in
his or her country of
nationality or, if
stateless, in his or her
country of last habitual
residence, on account
of race, religion,
nationality,
membership in a
particular social group,
or political opinion . . .
.
8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(1-2) (emphasis added). As the BIA noted,
Camara is not stateless, but rather is a citizen and national of the
Ivory Coast. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b) makes clear that only

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12
persecution in the applicant’s “country of nationality” is relevant
to a finding of past persecution or a well-founded fear of
persecution.
B.
We do not agree, however, with the basis of the BIA’s
conclusion that Camara did not experience past persecution in
the Ivory Coast. The BIA explained this holding in a single
paragraph:
Even assuming arguendo that the government
officials who came to the respondent’s family
home on one occasion in October 2002, falsely
arrested her father for assisting rebel forces, and
threatened the respondent and her family that they
would return to the family home for them as well,
were centrally motivated by a protected ground
under the Act, their mistreatment of the respondent
did not amount to past persecution (I.J. at 2-3; Tr.
at 47-48). See Fatin v. INS, 12 F. 3d 1233, 1240
(recognizing that persecution includes threats to
life, confinement, torture, and economic
restrictions that are so severe that they constitute a
threat to life or freedom and that persecution does
not encompass all treatment that our society
regards as unfair, unjust, or unlawful) (emphasis
added); see also Matter of A-E-M, 21 I&N Dec.
1157, 1159 (BIA 1998) (single threat did not rise
to the level of persecution). Moreover, the
respondent cannot establish that she suffered
persecution during the general strife that occurred
in her town in November 2002 between
government loyalists and rebel forces (Tr. at 49).
See Al-Fara v. Gonzales, 404 F.3d 733, 741 (3d
Cir. 2005) (providing that to qualify for asylum,
“an applicant must do more than rely on a general
threat of danger arising from a state of civil strife;
some specific showing is required”) (emphasis in
original).

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In asylum cases, reliance upon “boilerplate” language11
of this nature is “not particularly helpful in addressing the
question at hand.” See Voci v. Gonzales, 409 F.3d 607, 616 (3d
Cir. 2005) (reversing a determination that petitioner’s
experiences were not severe enough to amount to persecution).
Moreover, the facts of Fatin are inapposite here. Fatin
addressed whether the Iranian government’s restrictions on the
free expression of Iranian women constituted persecution.
Like the BIA, the government also relies heavily on the12
standard from Fatin.
13
AR 34 (all emphases in original).
Other than citing to the black-letter definition of
persecution laid down in Fatin, the BIA relies on only one11
case, Matter of A-E-M, 21 I. & N. Dec. 1157 (BIA 1998), in
support of its conclusion that Camara did not experience past
persecution in Abidjan. In Matter of A-E-M, the petitioner, a
Peruvian national and member of the APRA political party,
alleged that after many of his friends and relatives, all either
APRA members or police officers, had been killed by the
Shining Path guerilla group, “a painted phrase appeared on the
exterior of his house indicating that he would be ‘the next one,’”
and petitioner “‘assumed’” the sign was the work of the Shining
Path. 21 I. & N. Dec. at 1158. Matter of A-E-M held that “the
harassment that the primary respondent received in the form of a
painted threat on his house does not rise to the level of
persecution” and stated that “[a]side from this one threat, which
the primary respondent could not definitively link to the Shining
Path, the primary respondent admitted that neither he nor his
immediate family had further encounters or problems with the
Shining Path before his departure from Peru.” Id. at 1159.
Meanwhile, in its brief on appeal, the government urges
us to rely on Li v. Attorney General of United States, 400 F.3d
157 (3d Cir. 2005), for the conclusion that Camara’s having only
“once been threatened by unknown assailants . . . is insufficient
to constitute persecution under the INA.” Resp. Br. at 23. In12
Li, we held that the petitioner, a Chinese national who was

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14
threatened by government officials with sterilization following
the birth of his fourth child and whose friend had been arrested
and beaten for similar conduct, had not experienced past
persecution. We observed that “‘[t]hreats standing alone . . .
constitute persecution in only a small category of cases, and only
when threats are so menacing as to cause actual ‘suffering or
harm.’” 400 F.3d at 164 (citations omitted). We also
emphasized that “neither Li nor any of Li’s family members
were actually imprisoned, beaten, sterilized, or otherwise
physically harmed.” Id. at 165.
The BIA and the government are correct that Camara’s
experiences in Man, where neither petitioner nor her family
experienced any specific harm other than residing in a village
that was under attack, were neither sufficiently severe nor
individualized to meet the Fatin standard.
Camara’s experience in Abidjan, however, was far more
severe than that of the petitioners in Matter of A-E-M or Li.
Unlike the petitioner in Matter of A-E-M, Camara witnessed the
forcible seizure and removal of a parent to whereabouts
unknown at the hands of a group that she can definitively
identify as having directly and unambiguously threatened her
with harm as well. Unlike the petitioner in Li, Camara did
directly witness harm befall a member of her immediate family,
and it would be reasonable to conclude that watching her
father’s abduction caused Camara actual suffering and harm,
including (but not limited to) forcing her to flee her home.
Rather than Matter of A-E-M or Li, the facts of Konan v.
Attorney General, 432 F.3d 497 (3d Cir. 2005), are most similar
to the instant matter. In Konan, we held, inter alia, that
substantial evidence did not support the BIA’s conclusion that
Konan did not suffer past persecution on account of imputed
political opinion. Konan, the son of an Ivorian military police
officer, witnessed rebel forces attack the military police camp
where Konan lived with his father and brother. Konan, who was
standing at the front entrance of the camp during the attack,
“watched as the rebels shot through the hollow cement walls of
his house, igniting the wooden furniture and propane tanks
inside” and burning his brother and father alive. Konan, 432

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The government attempts to distinguish Konan from13
the instant matter on the ground that Konan predates the REAL
15
F.3d at 499. The attack took place on September 19, 2002,
during the same conflict that precipitated the events in the instant
case.
Konan considered the issue of whether the petitioner’s
father was attacked because he was a police officer or, instead,
because he was a loyalist; if Konan’s father had been attacked
merely because he was a police officer, then the attack would not
have constituted persecution on account of his political beliefs,
but if he had been attacked for being a government loyalist, then
the attack would have been past persecution on account of
imputed political opinion. See id. at 504. We concluded that
“the attack . . . was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to kill
presumed government loyalists because of their political
beliefs,” id. at 506, and therefore we remanded the case for
further consideration.
In Konan, we did not directly analyze whether the attack
there was itself sufficiently severe to amount to past persecution.
Nevertheless, we did state our conclusion that “[a]pplying the
substantial evidence test, [the evidence in Konan] ‘was such that
a reasonable factfinder would have to conclude that the requisite
fear of persecution existed.’” Id. (citing I.N.S. v. Elias-Zacarias,
502 U.S. 478, 481 (1992)). If anything, then, Konan indicates
the near obviousness of the proposition that a person who has
directly witnessed a brutal assault on a family member has
experienced so devastating a blow as to rise to the level of
persecution. Although here, unlike in Konan, petitioner’s father
was not killed in her presence, he was kidnapped, and that
kidnapping was accompanied by direct threats to Camara and her
family. Any difference in the severity of experiences between
Konan and the instant matter is not the sort of difference that
separates persecution from non-persecution. We therefore hold
that the BIA erred in concluding that the “mistreatment”
experienced by Camara “did not amount to past persecution.”
See AR 34. That conclusion was not supported by substantial13

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ID Act, which amended the INA, because the REAL ID
amendments require an asylum petitioner to “establish that at
least one central reason for the alleged persecution was a
statutorily protected ground.” See Resp. Br. at 22-23 (emphasis
in original) (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i)). The INA at the
time of Konan, in contrast, required only that a petitioner
establish that the alleged persecution was “on account of” a
statutorily protected ground. The government’s distinction,
however, is irrelevant. Konan’s pertinence to the instant matter
does not concern whether petitioner has shown that her
persecution stemmed from a statutorily protected ground, see
note 14 infra, but rather relates to how severe Camara’s
mistreatment must have been in order to constitute persecution.
The BIA concluded that Camara did not suffer past14
persecution “assuming arguendo that the government officials
who came to Camara’s family’s home . . . were centrally
motivated by a protected ground under the Act.” Prior to stating
this conclusion, the BIA stated that it “agree[d] with the
Immigration Judge that [Camara] has failed to demonstrate past
persecution,” citing to pages 7-9 of the IJ’s opinion. In those
pages of his opinion, the IJ states, inter alia, that “no objective
evidence was presented by the respondent for the Court to even
infer that her father was abducted by members of the death
squad on account of his ethnicity or religion.”
Had the BIA expressly adopted the IJ’s conclusion that
Camara’s father’s abduction was not on account of a statutorily
protected ground, that holding might, arguably, have provided an
independent basis for the BIA’s conclusion that Camara did not
experience past persecution. But considering the BIA’s blanket
statement of agreement with the IJ in conjunction with the BIA’s
decision to nevertheless analyze the case under the assumption
that Camara’s father was abducted on account of a protected
ground under the Act, we cannot tell whether the BIA meant to
adopt the IJ’s conclusion that Camara was not abducted on
account of a protected ground. We must, therefore, review the
BIA’s opinion as if it did not adopt the IJ’s conclusion. See
Abdulai v. Ashcroft, 239 F.3d 542, 549 n.2 (3d Cir. 2001) (“In
16
evidence.14

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this case, the BIA never expressly ‘adopted’ any portion of the
IJ’s opinion or announced that it was deferring to any of the IJ’s
findings. We therefore review only the BIA’s decision.”)
On remand, the BIA may wish to consider this issue more
directly. We observe without deciding, however, that there
appears to be ample evidence in the record that Camara’s father
was abducted on account of a statutorily protected ground,
whether it was his religion, ethnicity, or political opinion.
The BIA also held that Camara “failed to establish an15
independent, objectively reasonable well-founded fear of future
persecution if she is forced to return to the Ivory Coast.”
However, if, on remand, the BIA determines that Camara did
experience past persecution, the burden will shift to the
government to rebut the presumption that she possesses a well-
founded fear of future persecution. Whether or not Camara has
herself made such a showing, therefore, would not be
dispositive.
17
IV. Conclusion
Accordingly, we will REMAND for further consideration
consistent with this opinion.15

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