Both decisions

Both decisions

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Both decisions

Substantive

The officer agrees the U.S federal government itself is the one persecuting us, but still says we could safely move to another part of the same country. When the government itself is the persecutor, there's supposed to be a strong legal assumption that no part of that country is actually safe, and neither decision addresses that. The only source either decision cites for New York being safe is a state government webpage, with nothing from the U.N Refugee Agency or the E.U Asylum Agency. Both decisions also print our own written explanation for why relocating wouldn't help as if it were a reason supporting the opposite conclusion, and both cite their own country evidence describing the federal government "reversing protections for transgender people" and "using federal law as a tool to override state-level protections" without ever squaring that with the finding that a state offers protection. (§6.1, §6.3, §6.4)

Both decisions say all our evidence was "fully considered," but neither one names, quotes, or dates a single document from our appendices or the extra evidence we uploaded. The newest outside source either decision cites is from February 2025, even though we uploaded much more recent evidence before both decisions were issued, including reporting on the Minneapolis shootings from January 2026 and the September 2025 presidential memorandum. (§2)

We both claimed persecution based partly on our political opinions. Both decisions list that as one of our claims, but neither one ever actually rules on it. It's just left undecided. (§6.2)

The immigration office told us in writing, more than once, that it couldn't open the files we'd sent, including on the day of our interviews. Despite that, both decisions still claim everything was fully considered without saying what was or wasn't actually in front of the person deciding the case.

Both of our therapists' letters get summarised in the decision using a sentence that literally cuts off mid-thought, and that broken, incomplete summary gets reused three times as the stated reason for dismissing the medical evidence.

Supporting

The same officer interviewed both of us on the same day, but our decisions came out six weeks apart.

John's decision

Substantive

The part of the decision that decides whether it's reasonable for John to relocate is actually written about August, not John. It uses August's age, job, education, and number of siblings, and even says John is transgender, which he isn't. The real question, whether relocating is reasonable for John specifically, was never actually answered. (§6.4, §7.3)

The quote the decision uses to back up that same finding is something August said in his own interview, not John. John's real answer to that question isn't in the decision anywhere.

The decision says at one point that a pattern of repeated harm can add up to persecution, then a few pages later says John's own experience of repeated harm doesn't count. Those two findings contradict each other. (§6.1 vs §5)

The decision reasons that because police violence at the protest hit everyone there, it wasn't specifically aimed at John. That logic doesn't hold up: if a threat to an entire group doesn't count as persecution of the people in it, that would undercut almost every claim based on group membership, including the one the decision already accepted for John. It's also directly contradicted by evidence in the same paragraph: John was marked as a medic with a red cross on his backpack and was, in his own words, "one of the first the police went for," and "field medics like me were arrested first." Separate evidence in the file shows federal officers were photographing protesters, recording their names, and following some of them home. (§5, §6.2)

John explained he couldn't get his arrest records because the police wouldn't release them. The decision just says he "couldn't substantiate" the arrest and moves on, without ever accepting or rejecting his explanation.

The decision says John's description of his injuries undermines his claim that he was tortured and persecuted at protests. What John actually described was kettling, beatings, rubber bullets fired at close range, and chemical agents across roughly fourteen occasions between June and August 2020, and he explained he had no visible scrapes or bruises because he was wearing a mask that protected him from tear gas and was focused on getting back out to protest the next day. The decision doesn't engage with that explanation. It treats the absence of visible injury as proof the abuse didn't happen. (§5)

One section of the decision opens by finding John would genuinely be at risk of torture or inhumane treatment, then in that same section says the evidence doesn't actually support that risk. It contradicts itself. (§7.1(b))

John claimed political opinion as one of his two grounds for asylum, and the decision records that itself. But the actual analysis of his claim only ever addresses membership of a particular social group. The political opinion ground is never accepted and never rejected. It's simply not ruled on. (§2, §6.2)

John filed detailed evidence of two people shot dead by federal officers at protests in Minneapolis in January 2026, both around his own age, and none of it is mentioned anywhere in his decision. Renee Good, 37, was killed by an ice officer; officials publicly disputed the government's account that she'd tried to run over agents with a car, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Vice President, and the President all called her a "domestic terrorist" within days. Alex Pretti, also 37 and a registered nurse, was shot dead less than two weeks later while filming a protest and moving to help someone who'd been pepper-sprayed.

Verified footage showed he was holding a phone, not a weapon, and federal officers had already been collecting personal information on him before he was killed. John himself is a 37-year-old man who worked as a marked field medic at the protests in his own claim, and his stated fear at interview was that he "could immediately be designated a domestic terrorist, that there is no judicial redress for that." He wrote in his own evidence: "Being another 37 year old man who has had extensive protest history, if this had been in Wilmington, N.C... this could have easily been me."

This evidence goes directly to substantiating his fear, and the decision doesn't reference it once.

John's clinical letter, from Jacqueline Owen, states he "has been subjected to state violence during peaceful protest, including chemical assault and unlawful pursuit by law enforcement." The decision only uses this letter to show he's part of the L.G.B.T.Q+ community. It's never actually weighed on the point it was submitted for, which is whether he was assaulted.

At interview, the officer told John that no country evidence could be found to support his claim that persecution of the L.G.B.T.Q+ community has been written into law at the federal level. John replied, "I have submitted evidence of that." That evidence, and the officer's own cited sources describing federal actions against gender-affirming care and state-level protections, was already in the file. (§6.1)

The decision assesses the laws John is afraid of only by whether they're written as optional or mandatory on paper. It never looks at how those laws are actually being enforced in practice, which is the relevant test for whether they amount to persecution.

Supporting

John's home address is written as Wilmington, Delaware throughout the decision. It's actually Wilmington, North Carolina.

The decision records John as flatly denying he'd ever experienced past harm. What he actually said was two-thirds a yes.

One of the sources in the decision's own reference list, Reference 1, is literally a search-engine query rather than an actual source. Another source, the Human Rights Campaign report, is listed twice, as both Reference 8 and Reference 10.

August's decision (filed as Samantha Lee Mitchell, Person I.D 1573666 to 25)

Substantive

The day August and John left the U.S, a federal executive order took effect revoking passports for transgender and non-binary people and removing the "X" gender-marker option. August's own evidence is that the only reason he was able to travel was that he hadn't yet updated his passport to reflect his correct gender, out of fear of state-level discrimination back home. That order was briefly blocked, then fully reinstated. No state government issues or renews a U.S passport, so the New York state webpage the decision leans on for "legal document options" doesn't actually address the passport problem, and the decision never engages with this at all. (Appendix A)

At interview, August named a series of federal-level measures affecting him directly: a federal transport ban, the federal ban on gender-affirming care, a federal forced-outing policy, H.H.S promoting conversion therapy, and the shutdown of crisis-line services for transgender people. Asked whether he accepted that the National Security Presidential Memorandum doesn't specifically name the L.G.B.T.Q+ community as domestic terrorists, he answered, "It references gender extremism." That answer is recorded in the decision and then never addressed. (§6.1)

August's transgender status is central to his claim, but the decision doesn't consistently treat him as who he is. At one point it quotes his own account of coming out and choosing he/him pronouns, then immediately writes "She replied." Female pronouns show up four more times elsewhere in the file ("her application," "her family life rights," and similar), while a separate report in the same decision uses male pronouns throughout. His age is also given two different ways: 31 in one section, where his profession is left out entirely, and 32 everywhere else, where it's included. Together this reads like his actual circumstances were never pulled into one consistent picture. (§5, §7.1(a))

August's evidence that he's legally required, as a therapist, to out trans clients to their parents, and could be prosecuted or lose his license for refusing, is mentioned twice but never once treated as a form of persecution. That matters because the decision's whole argument for why relocating is reasonable depends on him being able to keep working as a psychotherapist. (§6.1)

At interview, the officer told August that no country evidence could be found to support his claim that people face serious harm in the U.S for protesting or being seen as leftist. He'd already told the officer he attended the "No Kings" protest and can't avoid being read as leftist. Evidence supporting exactly that claim, including reporting on the January 2026 Minneapolis shootings, was already in the file the officer was working from. (§5)

August's therapist's letter says his "identity and therapeutic stance have exposed [him] to legal threat," and that choosing not to update his legal name and gender is "a form of self-preservation in an environment where documentation is a risk." Neither point, both of which go directly to his fear of persecution, appears anywhere in the decision. The decision only engages with a broken, cut-off summary of the letter (see "Both decisions" above).

The decision partly rejects August's credibility by noting he accepted he'd never been threatened or physically harmed because of his sexual orientation, and treats that as undermining his claim. Two problems with that: his claim is based on gender identity, not sexual orientation, and a lack of past harm isn't a valid reason to reject a forward-looking fear in the first place. (§5)

Separately, the decision finds August "failed to substantiate" that he was targeted, without giving him the benefit of the doubt, even though his general credibility, his transgender status, and his membership in the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A+ community had all just been accepted a paragraph earlier in the same decision. (§5)

Supporting

His therapist's name, credentials, and the date of the letter are all wrong (his name is misspelled, his credentials are listed incorrectly, and the letter is dated two days off).

§7.1(a) and §7.1(b) both open by finding a real risk (death penalty, then torture), then the country-evidence bullet in each same subsection says the opposite, that the evidence doesn't support that risk. Only §7.1(c) is internally consistent. Combined with an unclosed bracket in §7.1(b) and the age inconsistency above, this reads like a template that was never actually checked against his file.

In one email exchange with the immigration office, a single attachment came through under its correct filename while the rest of that email's attachments didn't.

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