Asylum in the United States is meant to be a confidential process.  However, it is not uncommon for the BIA and the federal circuit courts to identify asylum seekers by name in their decisions, and to describe the applicants’ claims of persecution.  We lawyers sometimes wonder whether anyone in the home country ever learns about such cases.

In a recent example from the Ninth Circuit, a Cambodian couple was denied asylum before the Immigration Judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals.  They filed a petition for review with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which was denied. See Kin v. Holder, No. 05-73079 (9th Cir. Feb. 18, 2010).  Someone in Cambodia was paying attention, and the case recently appeared in the English language Phnom Penh Post:

Two Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) members who say they were tortured by authorities after participating in a 1998 political rally have had their bid for political asylum in the United States blocked by an appeal court there. In a legal opinion filed on Thursday, Judge Richard C Tallman of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld an earlier ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) rejecting the pair’s asylum requests, saying their asylum claim was riddled with inconsistencies.

The article goes on to identify the couple by name, and to describe their claims of persecution in detail.  The article concludes:

Senior CPP [Cambodian People’s Party – the ruling party of Cambodia] lawmaker Cheam Yeap could not confirm or deny the validity of the allegations raised by Kin Sambath and Prak Bunnary, but stated that peddling falsehood was not uncommon for the opposition. “It is characteristic of the SRP that they raise untrue issues because they want to live in a third country,” he said.

Now that the Ninth Circuit’s decision has exposed the names and stories of the two asylum seekers and a “Senior CPP lawmaker” is aware of their claims, they may have an argument to reopen their case in the U.S.: Even if their initial stories were not credible, the Cambodian government has become aware that they applied for asylum in the United States.  The very fact that they made this application–and accused the Cambodian government of persecuting them–might result in the government punishing them upon their return.  And that may be enough to support a new claim for asylum.