Matter of V-S-A-: When Another Person's Declaration Is Used Against You

Immigration judges sometimes see asylum declarations from unrelated cases that share striking similarities — the same phrases, the same sequences, occasionally the same sentences. The Board addressed that a decade ago in Matter of R-K-K-, and set up safeguards for how such comparisons may be used. This decision answers two questions that were left open.

The two holdings

In the Board's words:

“When inter-proceeding similarities are considered in a credibility determination, the redaction of personally identifying information from inter-proceeding declarations provides sufficient protection of the declarants' privacy and comports with the confidentiality regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 1208.6(a)–(c) (2026).”

“The procedural safeguards set forth in Matter of R-K-K-, 26 I&N Dec. 658 (BIA 2015), do not require declarants to be made available for cross-examination before the Immigration Judge can consider the declarations for inter-proceeding comparison.”

The reasoning, which matters here

The Board did not hold that a respondent has no right to confront adverse evidence. Its reasoning is narrower and turns on what the declarations are being used for. They are, in the Board's words, “not being offered for the truth of the statements made within but solely for the comparative purpose of showing specific similarities in words and phrases.” Used that way, the Board treats them as outside the hearsay problem that would otherwise call for producing the declarant.

The general evidentiary test in immigration court is unchanged: “the sole test for admission of evidence is whether the evidence is probative and its admission is fundamentally fair,” quoting Matter of Mariscal-Hernandez, 28 I&N Dec. 666, 668 (BIA 2022).

What did not change — and this is the important part

It would be wrong to read this decision as saying DHS may simply drop redacted declarations into a record and let them do their work. The R-K-K- framework survives intact. Under it, and as this decision restates:

The immigration judge should clearly identify on the record the documentary similarities being relied on — and should do so before considering the respondent's explanation or the reliability of the comparison. The respondent must receive meaningful notice of the similarities and a reasonable opportunity to explain them. The judge must then weigh everything in the totality of the circumstances rather than treating similarity as dispositive. And on remand in this very case, the Board directed the judge to assign appropriate weight and reassess reliability.

The use is also bounded: comparison of words and phrases, not proof of what the other declarations say happened.

Also in the decision

The Board separately reversed on past persecution, concluding that the two assaults in the record did not rise to that level. That half of the decision has received less attention than the declarations issue but matters just as much to how the case comes out.

For anyone preparing an asylum case, the practical takeaway is old but sharpened: a declaration should be the applicant's own account, in the applicant's own words, developed from the applicant's own memory. Language borrowed from a template or from someone else's story is a risk to credibility that has now been made easier for the government to raise.

This article is general legal information about a recent precedent decision, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. How this decision bears on any particular asylum case depends on the record in that case and on the law of the governing circuit. Consult a qualified immigration attorney about your own case. This website is attorney advertising.