The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) has issued a decision addressing what opportunity an asylum applicant must be given to address perceived inconsistencies in her testimony. “An applicant may be put on notice of inconsistencies in different ways, depending on the circumstances. When an inconsistency is obvious or apparent, it is not necessary to bring it to an applicant’s attention.” “For example, where an alien’s application stated that his home was ransacked by the opposition party while he was away, but he testified he was beaten by party members when he was at home, the Immigration Judge was not required to bring this obvious inconsistency to his attention.”
“Where an inconsistency is not obvious, the key consideration is whether it is reasonable to assume that the applicant was aware of it and had an opportunity to offer an explanation before the Immigration Judge relied on it.” “An Immigration Judge may ask the applicant to respond to a perceived inconsistency, but that is not the only way to bring it to his attention. The Government may give the applicant an opportunity to respond through cross-examination. The applicant’s representative may also decide to elicit testimony on direct examination, or on redirect to clarify inconsistencies that are brought out during the hearing, particularly if they are not obvious or apparent. Although an Immigration Judge is not required to ask about obvious inconsistencies, there is nothing that precludes him or her from doing so for the sake of clarity and completeness of the record.”
The full text of Matter of Y-I-M- can be found here:
https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1225926/download
