Fatouma Camara v. ERIC H. HOLDER, United States Attorney General

Honorable Louis H. Pollak, Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the*
Eastern District of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.
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PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 07-3892
FATOUMA CAMARA
v.
ERIC H. HOLDER, United States Attorney General,
Respondent
On Petition for Review of a Final Order
of the Board of Immigration Appeals
(Agency No. A97 530 153)
Before: SLOVITER and HARDIMAN, Circuit Judges,
and POLLAK, District Judge.*
(Opinion filed September 4, 2009)
ORDER AMENDING OPINION
POLLAK, District Judge:
The government has moved for modification of footnote 14 of the opinion filed on
September 4, 2009. The government’s request is GRANTED IN PART.
NOW THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that footnote 14 of the opinion is hereby

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AMENDED to read as follows:
Besides showing that the harm she experienced was severe enough to amount to
persecution, Camara was also required to show that the harm was on account of a
statutorily protected ground – e.g., her race, religion, nationality, social group
membership, or political opinion. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(42)(A), 1158(b)(1)(B)(i). The
BIA concluded that Camara did not suffer past persecution “assuming arguendo that the
government officials who came to [Camara’s] family home on one occasion in October
2002, falsely arrested her father for assisting rebel forces, and threatened [Camara] 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.” 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

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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’s father 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 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.
By the Court,
/s/ Louis H. Pollak
District Judge
Dated: November 4, 2009

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