Hamed Aghajani v. ERIC H. HOLDER Jr..,Attorney General

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as
provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
** The Honorable Ronald Lee Gilman, Senior United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth
Circuit, sitting by designation.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
HAMED AGHAJANI,
Petitioner,
v.
ERIC H. HOLDER Jr..,Attorney General
Respondent.
No. 07-74440
Agency No. A095-310-360
MEMORANDUM*
On Petition for review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Argued and Submitted July 12, 2012
Pasadena, California
Before: GILMAN,** TALLMAN, and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges.
Hamed Aghajani appeals from the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (the BIA)
denial of his petition for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the
Convention Against Torture (CAT). The BIA upheld the findings of the
Immigration Judge (IJ) that Aghajani was not credible.
FILED
AUG 08 2012
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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Both the IJ and the BIA determined that Aghajani’s testimony was
inconsistent and thus not credible for the following reasons: (1) Aghajani testified
that he was barred from school following his participation in a 1999 demonstration
in Tehran and that he was too depressed to do much of anything, but evidence in
the record purportedly showed that he attended a different school during this
period; (2) one of the summonses that he received was dated June 1999, before the
demonstration, which conflicted with his testimony that he had no involvement
with law enforcement prior to that event; and (3) his testimony about his mental-
health treatment conflicted with a letter from one of his doctors.
With respect to the first basis for the adverse credibility finding, the record
appears to be ambiguous. Aghajani attempted to explain the factual discrepancy in
his schooling by stating that he completed his high school studies and pre-
university testing courses in the year before the demonstration, not after. Some of
the record evidence supports this explanation, but other evidence suggests that he
did not complete his courses until 2000, which was after the demonstration.
When a petitioner’s testimony includes inconsistencies, due process requires
that the IJ provide the petitioner with an opportunity to explain that inconsistency.
See Soto-Olarte v. Holder, 555 F.3d 1089, 1092 & n.1 (9th Cir. 2009). The IJ did
not provide Aghajani with such an opportunity here. We thus conclude that the

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inconsistencies in Aghajani’s schooling presented insufficient grounds for an
adverse credibility finding based on the current record.
The government concedes that Aghajani was not confronted about the
summons issue, the second basis for the adverse credibility finding. Because of
this failure to confront, the record presently lacks substantial evidence to support
an adverse credibility finding on the summons issue.
Finally, we conclude that the remaining ground for the adverse credibility
finding—alleged inconsistencies concerning Aghajani’s treatment by psychiatrists
following his detention—lacks merit. When confronted with these alleged
inconsistencies, Aghajani explained that the treatment letter from Narges
Counseling Center mistakenly stated that he had received treatment for a year (the
term of the treatment contract that he had signed), but overlooked the treatment
notes, which confirmed his statement that he had received treatment from Narges
only once. He discontinued this treatment because he believed that the
conversational therapy methods at Narges would not help him, and record evidence
detailing his treatment by other psychiatrists supports this explanation.
The IJ concluded that Aghajani’s explanation could not be given weight
because the Narges letter talked about the treatment that Aghajani had received.
But this interpretation of the letter lacks support in the record. The copy of the

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letter is redacted and states at most that Aghajani was under treatment for
depression. This simple statement of Aghajani’s general diagnosis does not
suggest a course of treatment or extensive contact between Aghajani and the
therapist at Narges. The IJ’s and the BIA’s reliance on this ground is therefore not
supported by substantial evidence in the record.
As it currently exists, the record lacks substantial evidence to support the
adverse credibility finding. We therefore remand the petition to the BIA in order
to allow the IJ to confront Aghajani about the schooling and summonses issues, to
accept and consider any corroborating evidence that Aghajani might present, and to
make detailed findings on the question of Aghajani’s credibility. See Hartooni v.
INS, 21 F.3d 336, 343 (9th Cir. 1994) (remanding for a renewed credibility finding
because “we cannot say that no doubts have been raised about [the petitioner’s]
credibility.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
The petition for review is GRANTED. This case is REMANDED to the
BIA for further proceedings consistent with this Memorandum.

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