United States Seventh Circuit

Petition 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.

Appellate Information

• Argued 11/06/2009
• Decided 01/06/2010
• Published 01/06/2010

Judges

• POSNER, Circuit Judge., Before POSNER, KANNE, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Seventh Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• David Garfield, Catherine A. Reynolds, Attorney, Law Office of David Garfield, Washington, D.C., for Petitioner.


• For Appellees:
  
• Corey L. Farrell, Attorney, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.