QUESTIONS ASKED BY ASYLUM OFFICER OF A CHIN-CHRISTIAN FROM BURMA: March 2025

Tell me about your international travel. Did you ever return to the country that you say is so dangerous?

Did you ever work for the military, the police, or the government? If so, maybe you assisted in the persecution of others

Are you able to repeat your declaration? Or, is it too long and you can't remember it?

If you walk down the street in silence, how does anyone know you are a Chin?

What was your last address, outside of USA?

Tell me about all of your employment for the past 10 years? Tell me about all of your addresses for the past ten years? If you say you worked for X in the city of Yangon, in 2023, but you say you lived in Mandalay in 2023, then, have you contradicted yourself?

Form DS-160 is an application for a visa? Lots of questions and lots of answers? You don't know what errors are in that form, do you? Today, you will be giving me answers that are inconsistent with your earlier answers?

Why did you apply for asylum? Did you suffer harm in the past? What was the motive of the bad guys? What words did they say?

How many times were you harmed? If you live under a dictatorship, do you suffer harm each day?

Do you know what the rules are, for asylum? Who gets asylum, and who doesn't? If an "ordinary criminal" steals from you, do you get asylum? Does Chins suffer more crime than other groups?

Where were you, at the moment of your arrest? 

A bad man hit you? Did you report that to the police? Why not?

Did you have a "household family list"? Where is it today?

Does the government know your blood type?

Did you suffer physical harm? Are there other kinds of harm? Such as emotional harm? Anxiety? Worry? Fear? 

Is there anything else? Really? what?

Month/year/city.   Is the asylum officer always interested in month/year/city and who the bad guy was?

If you don't know, why don't you say, "I am not sure. Perhaps it was in June or July of 2024.  My birthday was in November, it happened a few months before that."

Some people in Chin State have cell phones? They can write a letter, hold it up to their chests, have their photo taken, showing the letter? then, they can send the photo to you, in TEN MINUTES? Why can't  you do this five times?

If  you were the officer, would you believe you? \

Does the officer know more about Burma than you do?

Is that embarrassing to you?