Evidence

• Author: International Law Group
• Pages: 206-207

Page 206

Petitioner, Vladimir Vatyan, a citizen of Armenia, applied for asylum and other forms of relief from deportation in the United States. According to his asylum application, he was born in Azerbaijan but forcibly deported to Armenia during the social unrest that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Petitioner claimed that like other ethnic Armenians who had lived in Azerbaijan, he was marginalized and had difficulty fi nding work.

He alleged that his son was conscripted into the military and died under mysterious circumstances suggesting murder, although the Armenian government labeled the death a suicide and refused Petitioner's request to investigate further.

Finally, Petitioner claimed that his objections to the military's handling of his son's death and other injustices made him a target of the Armenian government, which allegedly imprisoned him for several months.

At his hearing before the Immigration Judge (IJ), Petitioner sought to introduce into evidence several documents, including: (1) a 1999 letter, purportedly from the Armenian Ministry of Internal Affaairs and National Security, stating that Petitioner's son had committed suicide and that there would be no further investigation into the son's death; (2) a 1999 death certifi cate for Petitioner's son; and (3) a 2000 letter, also purportedly from the Ministry of Internal Affaairs, that "certifi ed" Petitioner's imprisonment from January to April 2000.

The government objected to the documents as not properly certifi ed under the authentication standards for foreign public documents set forth by 8 C.F.R. ß 287.6(c), and thus inadmissible. The IJ, acknowledging the Ninth Circuit's holding in Khan v. INS, 237 F.3d 1143, 1144 (9th Cir. 2001), that a foreign public document may be authenticated in an immigration proceeding either under ß 287.6(c) or through "any recognized procedure," asked Petitioner's counsel whether the documents had been authenticated in any other way. When counsel responded that Petitioner would authenticate the documents through his own testimony, the IJ rejected this proposed authentication method and granted the government's motion to exclude the documents, stating that they have not been properly authenticated either under 8 C.F.R. ß 287.6, or in any other recognized manner under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as is outlined in Khan v. INS, 237 F.3d 1143.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the IJ found that Petitioner lacked credibility...