Inconsistency can doom an asylum application.
Asylum applicants must demonstrate that their stories of persecution are reliable, and few things set off judicial “reliability detectors” as much as a shifting narrative.
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that a refugee will typically go through a battery of interviews with many different authorities before her claim is adjudicated. As the mound of interview transcripts grows, so too do the odds of conflicting testimony.
Ming Zhang recently learned this the hard way. Zhang, who entered the U.S. in 2003 and made a Chinese “family planning” claim – premised on protections offered for victims of China’s coercive family planning policies – was denied asylum on the basis of inconsistencies between her testimony before an immigration judge, in her “airport interview,” and in her “credible fear” interview. Zhang’s appeal of this denial was upheld in an October 2009 decision that established new precedent in the Second Circuit on the issue of the extent to which reviewing courts may consider the record of “credible fear” interviews when evaluating an alien’s reliability. See Zhang v. Holder, No. 07-0327 (2nd Cir. Oct. 30, 2009):
[Zhang’s] asylum application emphasized that she had undergone two forced abortions and had been driven to attempt suicide. [She] did not, however, discuss any of these events at her airport interview, or at her later credible fear interview.
Zhang, who does not speak English and was interviewed through a Mandarin translator, had told her airport interviewer that she immigrated because the Chinese government was forcing her to “have a birth control device” implanted in her, that she had been detained for refusing to submit to the procedure, and that if she was sent back she “would die.” She repeated but did not add to those claims a week later, in a “credible fear” interview at an INS facility where she had been detained.
When asked why she did not discuss the forced abortions and suicide attempt at those interviews, Zhang said she was “confused” and did not know what to say. She further asserted that she had mentioned “suicide” in her airport interview, and that the omission of that statement from the transcript was wrong. This explanation did not sway the IJ, the BIA, or the federal court.