Interesting Ninth Circuit case on Findlaw today: Paramasamy v. Ashcroft The case concerns the appeal of a Sri Lankan woman appealing a deportation order. The Board of Immigration Appeals had denied her application for asylum based on a finding of adverse credibility by an Immigration Judge. The problem? The opinion nails it in the first sentence when it says that “Cookie cutter credibility findings are the antithesis of the individualized determination required in asylum cases.” In short, the Immigration Judge got caught cut-and-pasting blocks of language from one opinion to the next and in addition to missing facts that were in the transcript, didn’t even make all the changes required to reflect the fact that the appellants in the previous cases were male, while this one was female. With the Judge’s credibility shot to hell, there was no basis for the Board’s denial. The case has been remanded for a new hearing. Sure Word et al make things easy, but some people just gotta make it too easy.

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