Everth Ceballos-Castillo v. Immigration and Naturalization Service

Spouses Everth Ceballos-Castillo and Santos Pineda-Medrano (the applicants) (plaintiffs) were Guatemalans seeking asylum in the United States. In their asylum application, they alleged persecution by a guerrilla group. In a subsequent hearing, the applicants instead alleged persecution by the Guatemalan government, explaining that fear of the Guatemalan government caused them to lie in their application. However, other evidence showed that Castillo voluntarily served in the civil patrol, a group under the Guatemalan army’s supervision, during the time of the alleged government persecution, meaning that Castillo would have intentionally brought himself to the attention of his alleged persecutor. At the hearing, the applicants also testified that a friend obtained the applicants’ passports illegally, giving the passports to the applicants on the day they fled Guatemala. Evidence showed, however, that the passports had been issued on separate days, with the passport numbers suggesting that over 300 passports were issued in between. Further, the valid fingerprints in the passports tended to refute the suggestion that a third party acquired them on the applicants’ behalf. At the hearing’s conclusion, the immigration judge denied the asylum application, concluding that the applicants’ claims were not credible based on inconsistencies and misstatements. Specifically, the judge cited the changed position regarding the source of persecution, the inconsistencies between the passport testimony and the passports themselves, Castillo’s voluntary civil-patrol service, and the applicants’ decision to leave their two-year-old child in Guatemala when they fled to the United States. The Board of Immigration Appeals upheld the immigration judge’s denial of asylum. The applicants appealed.