NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUL 31 2019 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MATEO NICOLAS CARRANZA- No. 17-70250 ALBARRAN, AKA Alejandro Carranza, Agency No. A208-305-103 Petitioner, v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted May 14, 2019 Portland, Oregon Before: N.R. SMITH, WATFORD, and R. NELSON, Circuit Judges. Mateo Carranza-Albarran is a citizen of Mexico applying for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). He claims that he was persecuted in Mexico on account of his membership in a particular social group, which in his case, was defined by sexual orientation. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42); Boer-Sedano v. Gonzales, 418 F.3d 1082, 1087–88 (9th Cir. * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. Page 2 of 6 2005). The immigration judge (IJ) denied his application on the basis of an adverse credibility determination. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed that determination and dismissed Carranza-Albarran’s appeal. In making its decision, the BIA relied on three alleged omissions from Carranza-Albarran’s asylum application and two alleged omissions from his testimony. Carranza- Albarran petitions for review. We conclude that the BIA’s adverse credibility determination is not supported by substantial evidence. 1. The BIA identified three omissions from Carranza-Albarran’s asylum application: his rape by the police, sexual abuse by his brother, and harassment by classmates during a seventh-grade field trip. We do not think that any of these asserted omissions support the BIA’s adverse credibility determination. Our court has stated that “[o]missions from asylum applications are often not a sufficient basis for discrediting later testimony.” Alvarez-Santos v. INS, 332 F.3d 1245, 1254 (9th Cir. 2003). Although the REAL ID Act specifies that “consistency between the applicant’s . . . written and oral statements” is a relevant factor in weighing an asylum applicant’s credibility, some omissions do not create any inconsistency. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii). The facts of this case illustrate why we frequently discount omissions from asylum applications. Carranza- Albarran does not understand English and filled out his asylum application (in Page 3 of 6 English) with the help of a preparer who is not a lawyer. See Alvarez-Santos, 332 F.3d at 1254. Carranza-Albarran testified that he had to communicate with the preparer, who did not speak Spanish, through an interpreter. The preparer appears to have not understood how to fill out the asylum application, as he failed to discuss in any detail the instances of persecution that Carranza-Albarran had described during his credible-fear interview. This is therefore not a case in which an asylum applicant omitted significant incidents from an otherwise detailed asylum application. We further discount the significance of the alleged omissions from Carranza-Albarran’s asylum application because he had already mentioned all three of the incidents at issue during his credible-fear interview. This case is therefore distinguishable from ...
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