Haile v. Holder, No. 08-4187

Petitioner for review the Board of Immigration Appeal's denial of an Ethiopian citizen's request for asylum is granted and remanded as, from the correct premise that a change of citizenship incident to a change in national boundaries is not persecution per se, it does not follow that taking away a person's citizenship because of his religion or ethnicity is not persecution. And here, if Ethiopia denationalized the petitioner because of his Eritrean ethnicity, it did so because of hostility to Eritreans, and the analogy to the Nazi treatment of Jews is close enough to suggest that his denationalization was persecution and created a presumption that he has a well-founded fear of being persecuted should he be returned to Ethiopia.   

Read Haile v. Holder, No. 08-4187

Appellate Information

Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals

Decided January 6, 2010

Judges

Before:  Posner, Rovner, and Kanne, Circuit Judges

Opinion by Circuit Judge Posner