Burundi Journalist Gets New Credibility Hearing in Asylum Case

An immigration judge’s determination that a Burundi journalist’s testimony wasn’t credible and that she therefore wasn’t entitled to asylum was thrown out by the Second Circuit.

Although courts generally defer to an immigration judge’s credibility determinations, the unpublished per curiam opinion said that the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit wasn’t confident that the Board of Immigration Appeals would reach the same result with an accurate record.

Clelia-Arielle Mutoni said she was raped in Burundi because she was a journalist. The immigration judge held that Mutoni’s testimony wasn’t credible because of inconsistencies about her education.

• The perceived inconsistency ...