Case: 17-15245 Date Filed: 02/14/2020 Page: 1 of 15 [PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ Nos. 17-15245; 18-12162 ________________________ Agency No. A 209-134-539 HAMID SOW, Petitioner, versus U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. ________________________ Petitions for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals ________________________ (February 14, 2020) Before WILSON and NEWSOM, Circuit Judges, and COOGLER, ∗ District Judge. WILSON, Circuit Judge: ∗The Honorable L. Scott Coogler, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama, sitting by designation. Case: 17-15245 Date Filed: 02/14/2020 Page: 2 of 15 Hamid Sow, a citizen of Guinea, seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) denial of his motion to remand based upon ineffective assistance of counsel and motion to reopen based upon new evidence. After careful review and with the benefit of oral argument, we conclude that the BIA abused its discretion in denying Sow’s motion to remand based on ineffective assistance of counsel. We therefore grant Sow’s petition for review, vacate the BIA’s decisions, and remand to the BIA with instructions to remand to the IJ for reconsideration of Sow’s asylum application. 1 I. Factual and Procedural Background A. Underlying Facts In December 2016, Sow entered the United States and immediately applied for asylum based on his membership in a particular social group—the homosexual community. His application for asylum alleged the following. Sow was raised in Conakry, Guinea where he had to hide his sexuality because of the stigma against homosexuals in his devout Muslim community. For the same reason, he had to hide his relationship with a man named Alpha Oumar Barry. When Sow’s sister discovered the true nature of Sow and Alpha’s 2 1 Because we are granting relief based on Sow’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim, we decline to address his motion to reopen based on new evidence. 2 Multiple individuals involved in this case—none of whom are related—have the last name Barry. We therefore refer to these individuals by their first names. 2 Case: 17-15245 Date Filed: 02/14/2020 Page: 3 of 15 relationship, Sow immediately fled his house for fear that his uncle, a prominent Iman, would kill him. While he was in hiding, a friend informed Sow that his family and other members of the community had tortured and then burned him alive. His friend also reported that Sow’s uncle had instructed the community members to, once found, either kill Sow or turn him into the police for failing his family and the laws of Islam. Sow fled to Morocco, where he intended to stay with a cousin. But by the time he arrived at his cousin’s house, his cousin had learned of Sow’s sexuality. As a result, he brutally beat Sow. A taxi driver found Sow and took him to a hospital, but the hospital staff refused to treat Sow because of his sexuality. The taxi driver then took him to a friend’s home. The driver’s friend cared for Sow for nearly six months while he ...
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