Henry Mboowa applied for asylum from Uganda based on harm that he and his family experienced due to his involvement in a political youth movement that supported an opposition candidate for president. The Immigration Judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals rejected Mboowa's application, finding his testimony was not credible. In particular, the agency focused on several incidents of persecution that Mboowa testified about in court, but did not include in the supplemental statement attached to his asylum application. However, as the First Circuit noted, these incidents were referenced in the asylum application itself, and thus, were not omitted from the written materials.
"In concluding that these allegations were absent from Mboowa's initial application, the agency appears to have placed talismanic weight on Mboowa's supplemental statement to the exclusion of the I-589 Form that statement accompanied. But the agency supplied no rationale justifying its focus on the supplemental statement, leaving us with a firm sense that the I-589 Form itself was overlooked."
The First Circuit remanded the case to the Board of Immigration Appeals for further consideration of Mboowa's application for asylum.
The full text of Mboowa v. Lynch can be found here: http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/13-1367P-01A.pdf