# Sheya Mandebvu v. Eric Holder, Jr.

> Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit · June 18, 2014 · 755 F.3d 417

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9799966

## Case

- **Full name:** Sheya MANDEBVU; Mtandazo Mandebvu; Tinotenda Mandebvu; Tatenda Mandebvu, Petitioners, v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General, Respondent
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
- **Decided:** June 18, 2014
- **Citations:** 755 F.3d 417; 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 11399; 2014 WL 2743608
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Merritt
- **Judges:** Merritt, Moore, McKeague
- **Cited by:** 36 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9799966

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- concluding that the agency had erred as a matter of law by requiring that "an asylum applicant, in order to excuse a delay in filing beyond the one-year deadline, demonstrate that he would not have been eligible for asylum had he applied before the change"
- holding that the IJ’s decision was not based on substantial evidence where it “failed to consider several critical pieces of evidence”
- noting that even incremental change is sufficient for the changed country conditions exception

## Opinion text

*434 MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join Judge Moore’s opinion sending this case back to the BIA for reconsideration. In addition to the reasons she gives based on asylum, the most recent State Department Country Report for 2013 for Zimbabwe states that President Robert Mugabe was reelected on July 31, 2013, in an election that “was neither fair nor credible,” using “a process effectively negating the right of citizens to choose their government.” The 2013 Report describes the current situation in the country as follows:
The most important human rights problems remained the government’s targeting for torture, abuse, arrest, and harassment members of non-ZANU-PF parties and civil society activists; partisan application of the rule of law by security forces and the judiciary; the government’s compulsory acquisition of private property and restrictions on civil liberties.
A 21-page Report follows this language. It describes in detail human rights violations that run the gamut from widespread rape to widespread slavery. This is certainly no place for the United States to send this family of five, who are non-ZANU-PF with a history of political activism. The Report describes violations of the Convention Against Torture that this family could probably not escape. The BIA should reconsider its former position when it took no action. The 2013 Country Report would be a good place for the BIA to start its reconsideration.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9799966. Public record. Not legal advice.