The Board of Immigration Appeals has sustained DHS's appeal from a grant of asylum to an Afghan respondent who claimed persecution by the Taliban based on his imputed political opinion as a women's-rights advocate, holding that the immigration judge's credibility finding failed to grapple with numerous unresolved inconsistencies in the record.
The Board identified conflicting testimony about when the respondent's problems with the Taliban began, contradictions regarding his employment history and payment for his advocacy work, inconsistencies between his hearing testimony and credible fear interview about how he identified his captors, and unexplained discrepancies concerning his travel through multiple countries before reaching the United States, including how he obtained visas to Germany and Austria along the way. Because an immigration judge must consider the totality of the circumstances in evaluating credibility, the Board remanded for a fuller credibility analysis before any reassessment of the respondent's asylum, withholding, and CAT claims.
The full text of Matter of A-Q-R-K- can be found here: https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1459986/dl?inline