PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 19-1930 EDIER DE JESUS RODRIGUEZ BEDOYA; LUZ ALEXANDRA BUILES MAYA; D.R.B.; SARA RODRIGUEZ BUILES, Petitioners, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: October 27, 2020 Decided: November 25, 2020 Before KING, KEENAN, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges. Petition for review granted and remand awarded by published opinion. Judge King wrote the opinion, in which Judge Keenan and Judge Harris joined. ARGUED: Bradley Bruce Banias, WASDEN BANIAS LLC, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, for Petitioners. Aliza B. Alyeshmerni, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Carl McIntyre, Assistant Director, Nancy E. Friedman, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. KING, Circuit Judge: Petitioners Edier de Jesus Rodriguez Bedoya and his family — that is, his wife and two children — seek review of a final order of removal entered by the Board of Immigration Appeals (the “BIA”) in August 2019. 1 The BIA therein upheld the ruling of an immigration judge (“IJ”) that the petitioners, who are citizens of Colombia, had not sufficiently established persecution based on threats of death and harm by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, commonly known as FARC. As explained herein, we grant the petition for review and remand. I. A. As reflected in the Administrative Record (“A.R.”) filed in these proceedings, petitioner Bedoya joined the National Police of Colombia in 1992. As a Colombian police officer, Bedoya engaged with FARC and, in 1995, investigated FARC rebels located in and about Liborina, in the Department of Antioquia, Colombia. The Colombian Army thereafter used information Bedoya had gathered concerning FARC and eliminated at least three FARC guerillas. A few months later, in October 1995, Bedoya was transferred to Sabanalarga, Antioquia, a town located about an hour away from Liborina. 1 Bedoya’s wife and children are derivative asylum applicants in the operative application for relief. See 8 C.F.R. § 1208.21(a) (providing that a spouse or child “also may be granted asylum if accompanying, or following to join, the principal alien”). 2 In approximately May 1996, after being transferred to the new town, several individuals known to Officer Bedoya messaged him to advise that FARC had threatened Bedoya’s life. According to one of Bedoya’s friends — a man named Ernesto Correa — fifteen or twenty FARC guerillas had seen Bedoya riding a motorcycle, recognized Bedoya as a Colombian police officer, and intended to kill him. Correa, however, told the commander of the FARC guerilla group that the biker (referring to Bedoya) was not a police officer, but was a student. The FARC commander warned Correa that if he was lying, Correa would suffer the consequences. Correa thereafter sent Bedoya several additional messages — and advised Bedoya in person — that he should be careful because the FARC guerillas would kill him and “were breathing down [his] neck.” ...
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