PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 18-1886 NGAWUNG ATEMNKENG, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: October 29, 2019 Decided: January 24, 2020 Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, WYNN, and THACKER, Circuit Judges. Petition for review granted; vacated, and remanded by published opinion. Chief Judge Gregory wrote the opinion, in which Judge Wynn and Judge Thacker joined. ARGUED: Ronald Darwin Richey, LAW OFFICE OF RONALD D. RICHEY, Rockville, Maryland, for Petitioner. Robert Dale Tennyson, Jr., UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Carl McIntyre, Assistant Director, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. GREGORY, Chief Judge: Ngawung Atemnkeng, a citizen of Cameroon, fled her country after participating in anti-government meetings and protests, getting arrested and was detained without trial several times, being tortured and beaten by government officers, and receiving numerous death threats. An immigration judge (“IJ”) initially noted some inconsistencies in Atemnkeng’s application, but nevertheless found her credible and her explanations plausible, and granted her asylum application. On appeal, the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) reversed the IJ’s determination and instructed the IJ, in reviewing the asylum application a second time, to afford Atemnkeng an opportunity to explain any inconsistencies. On remand, Atemnkeng has now relocated to Baltimore and the new IJ (“Baltimore IJ”) permitted her to submit additional documents in support of her asylum application and scheduled a master calendar hearing. Approximately one month prior to the hearing, however, the Baltimore IJ issued a written ruling denying Atemnkeng’s applications for asylum and other reliefs. The Baltimore IJ concluded, without Atemnkeng’s new testimony, that she was not credible in light of inconsistencies in her story. On a second appeal to the BIA, the Baltimore IJ’s ruling was affirmed without an opinion. Atemnkeng now petitions for review of the BIA’s summary affirmance of the Baltimore IJ’s rulings. In her petition for review, she raises several claims, most notably, that her due process rights were violated when the Baltimore IJ deprived her of an opportunity to testify on remand. Concluding that Atemnkeng’s claim related to her ability to testify is meritorious, we grant the petition for review, vacate the BIA’s affirmance, and remand for 2 further proceedings. In light of our conclusion that the Baltimore IJ failed to give Atemnkeng an opportunity to testify and weigh the relevance of that testimony in conjunction with the entire record, we decline to address whether the adverse credibility determination and denials of Atemnkeng’s applications for withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) were erroneous. I. Atemnkeng is a national and citizen of Cameroon. She and her family lived in the southwestern area of the country called the British Southern Cameroon Region (the “Region”). In the Region, most Cameroonians speak English—even though the majority in the rest of the country speak French—and support independence ...
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