ASYLUM CASE REOPENED ON TRANSCRIPTION ERROR
Bob Egelko
San Francisco Chronicle
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May 15 2008
CA
SAN FRANCISCO — When Svetlana Grigoryan was presenting her case
for political asylum in the United States, she testified through an
interpreter that a crowd of people attacked her family in her native
Armenia in 1995, badly injuring her and killing her 13-year-old son,
"because my mother was a cook."
At least that’s how it read in the transcript of the 2003 hearing,
which prompted the immigration courts and a federal appeals court to
rule that Grigoryan had failed to show she was a victim of political
persecution.
Then an immigration lawyer took a look at her case, talked to
Grigoryan, and figured out that the transcript was wrong – she’d
actually testified that she was attacked "because my mother was
a Turk."
That made a difference. Turks slaughtered between 1 million and 1.5
million Armenians in the genocide of 1915-16. An Armenian who fled
the country after being assaulted because of her Turkish descent
could have a strong case for asylum.
On Monday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco
told the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals to reconsider Grigoryan’s
case and decide whether she had been persecuted. The "transcription
error … goes to the heart of her claim," said the court, which had
ruled against her in 2005.
"Now she can tell her story," said her attorney, Artem Sarian.
Grigoryan, who lives in the Los Angeles area, entered the United
States and applied for asylum in 1999. She said in her application
that she and her parents had been harassed by Armenians because her
mother was Turkish.
The family moved to Azerbaijan in the 1980s, but Grigoryan said she
was beaten and jailed there after war broke out with Armenia.
The family returned to Armenia in 1992 and Grigoryan became president
of an organization that helped soldiers wounded in the war. She said
a rivalry within the organization led to the January 1995 assault
that injured her and killed her son.
Grigoryan had difficulties in her asylum application, the appeals
court said, because her first lawyer filed written arguments that had
little to do with her case and virtually conceded she was ineligible
for asylum. A disciplinary agency in Connecticut, where the lawyer
practiced, cited him for unethical conduct in her case, the court said.
Sarian said Grigoryan contacted him in 2005, after the immigration
courts ordered her deported, and he looked at the case records. They
included the transcript of the 2003 hearing containing a transcription
mistake that was obvious, even though it had been overlooked by the
immigration judge, the immigration appeals board and Grigoryan’s
first lawyer, Sarian said.
"Nobody really cared about this person," he said.