The First Circuit has granted a petition for review filed by a Nepalese asylum applicant whose immigration judge denied relief after finding him not credible, without ever addressing whether he showed signs of incompetency requiring further inquiry. The applicant had suffered a head injury from a political assault years earlier and, during his hearing, gave confused answers that led the judge to order a mental health evaluation.
The evaluation found that the applicant's ability to assist his own attorney was compromised by attention and concentration deficits, but the judge treated the report only as an unsuccessful attempt to rehabilitate credibility and never made any competency finding. The Court held that the combination of the applicant's head trauma and the psychologist's report compelled a finding of indicia of incompetency under Matter of M-A-M-, triggering the immigration judge's affirmative duty to inquire further, regardless of the applicant's positive demeanor or representation by counsel. The Court remanded for the agency to conduct the required competency inquiry in the first instance.
The full text of Rana v. Blanche can be found here: https://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/sites/ca1/files/opnfiles/25-1862P-01A.pdf