Revista Temas de Derecho Constitucional

154 Revista Temas de Derecho Constitucional Evaluation of Evidence Another issue is the quality of the evaluation of evidence offered to support Venezue- lans’ asylum claims in light of country conditions. We may consider a third case, involv- ing a Venezuelan who sought asylum in the United States, Oswaldo Cabas v. William P. Barr, Attorney General , No. 18-1630, 928 F. 3d 177, 1 st Cir. (July 1, 2019). Cabas is original- ly from Maraciabo, Venezuela. He joined a political group called Acci ón Democr á tica . He arranged meetings for the group and distributed flyers. After Chavez gained power, Cabas joined a political group called Un Nuevo Tiempo which opposed Chavez. He vis- ited people’s homes, warning them that Chavez was a threat to democracy and host- ed a weekly political radio program in which he criticized the Chavez regime. He was threatened at a party but escaped. Later he alleged that the C ír culos Bolivarianos (a network of ex-guerilllas, government sponsored militias) attacked and kidnapped him. He was threatened to abandon his political activity, beaten, and left unconcscious in the street. Cabas returned to his political activities and Chavez’s supporters kidnapped and attacked his father. Cabas then sought asylum in the US and stopped his political activity. He later returned to Venezuela but two men came to his house looking for him and attacked his brothers. He returned to the US. The Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against him and the Immigration Judge denied his request for asylum. Cabas had provided a copy of the warrant which was dated 2017, included the signature of a Venezuelan judge, and the stamped seal of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The warrant charged Cabas with providing logistical and economic support to opposi- tion demonstrators, public instigation, and treason. Cabas also provided the 2016 Hu- man Rights Watch Report and a news article on Venezuela’s Law of Hate. The BIA had concluded that this evidence could not be considered prima facie for asy- lumand gave limited weight to the arrest warrant, stating that it had not beenmeaning- fully authenticated. Further they determined that Cabas had not provided a plausible explanation for why the authorities would want to arrest him given that he had been absent from Venezuela such a long time. They stated that Cabas had not given inde- pendent evidence that he continued to support Un Nuevo Tiempo , that his friends had been arrested, tortured and killed, or that the warrant had been delivered to his family’s home. The BIA affirmed the negative ruling. Cabas appealed pursuant to the claim that the BIA committed an error of law or exercised its judgment in an arbitrary, capricious, or irrational way. Cabas’ primary evidence of changed country conditions in Venezuela was the 2016 US Department of State Human Rights Report for Venezuela. The BIA had compared the 2016 report to the 2009 report and while they noted the Venezuelan government’s continued targeting of “opposition political activists for arbitrary detentions” and “reports of government harassment and intimidation of opposition political parties”, the BIA concluded that the 2016 report was “insufficient to show a material change in conditions or circumstances in Venezuela with respect to the treatment of members of opposition political parties. . .” The Court of Appeal disagreed with the BIA, noting that the comparison of the two reports: