The petitioner, a Mr. Grava, entered the United States in 1991 as a nonimmigrant visitor.  He subsequently applied affirmatively for asylum, and in 1994 the Immigration and Naturalization Service denied his application and initiated deportation proceedings against him.  At his deportation hearing, Grava was represented by counsel.  The immigration judge asked Grava under oath whether everything contained in the application was true and correct, and he affirmed that it was.  The IJ then asked the INS attorney whether he had any objection to making the application and supporting documents part of the record, and he did not object.  After Grava was asked a few questions, first by the IJ, then by his own counsel and the government’s, the IJ issued an oral decision denying the asylum application.

On appeal, the BIA stated that it could not consider Grava’s written application as evidence because there was no stipulation in the record that Grava’s oral testimony, were he to have testified, would be consistent with the written materials.  The BIA also ruled that, even were it to consider the application, it would deny asylum because the persecution Grava suffered was a matter of personal retaliation rather than political opinion.  Grava then filed a petition for review.

On appeal, the court rejected the BIA’s finding that it could not consider the written application.  Since Grava testified under oath that the information in the application was true, the court found no basis for the BIA to reject it as evidence.

The court also rejected the BIA’s conclusion that Grava suffered only personal retaliation.  Grava’s application showed that while employed by the government he had denounced corruption committed by his supervisors.  As a result, he received death threats and was forced to leave the country.  According to the court, "The [BIA] erred in concluding that Grava’s whistleblowing could not constitute an expression of political opinion. . . . When the alleged corruption is inextricably intertwined with governmental operation, the exposure and prosecution of such an abuse of public trust is necessarily political."  The court remanded the case for a determination of whether Grava’s whistleblowing actions were "directed toward a governing institution, or only against individuals whose corruption was aberrational."