Anrifat Aboubakar v. Attorney General United States

502 F. App'x 119
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedOctober 19, 2012
Docket12-1569
StatusUnpublished

This text of 502 F. App'x 119 (Anrifat Aboubakar v. Attorney General United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Anrifat Aboubakar v. Attorney General United States, 502 F. App'x 119 (3d Cir. 2012).

Opinion

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

Lead petitioner Anrifat Aboubakar and her husband, Omar Kadafi (hereinafter collectively referred to as “Petitioners”), petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) final order of removal issued in their consolidated removal proceedings. For the reasons that follow, we will deny the petition.

I.

Petitioners are natives and citizens of the Union of the Comoros (“Comoros”), which is comprised of a group of islands located off the eastern coast of Africa. According to the U.S. State Department’s 2009 International Religious Freedom Report for Comoros, 99 percent of that country’s population is Sunni Muslim. (A.R. at 443.)

In 2006, Petitioners entered the United States as nonimmigrant visitors. They ultimately stayed beyond the time allowed under their respective visas, and applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). In support of their application, they claimed that they feared returning to Comoros because they had *121 converted from Islam to Christianity during their time there.

In March 2010, an immigration judge (“IJ”) denied the application on the merits and ordered their removal to Comoros. Petitioners appealed that decision to the BIA, which dismissed the appeal in February 2012. In rejecting Petitioners’ asylum claim, the BIA agreed with the IJ that Petitioners had not demonstrated a well-founded fear of future persecution. In support of this conclusion, the BIA stated as follows:

Although one article in the record describes the detention of four Christian converts, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that these individuals were persecuted. On the contrary, the United States Department of State’s International Religious Freedom Reports discuss societal discrimination, but not persecution, against non-Muslim citizens and converts to Christianity. The Comoran government prohibits non-Muslim citizens from proselytizing, but [Petitioners] have not engaged in this activity or expressed a desire to do so.
Turning to the individualized evidence, [Petitioners] submitted a letter from a member of their Comoran Christian group, who claims that members of the group are currently incarcerated. They also provided letters from [Abou-bakar’s] mother and sister, in which the writers assert that the authorities have inquired about [Aboubakar’s] whereabouts. The [IJ] reasonably afforded limited weight to these documents because they are unsworn, the writers were not subject to cross-examination, and the writers are interested witnesses. The [IJ] further observed that the claims in the letters are not supported by the International Religious Freedom Reports. Finally, [Petitioners] did not present corroborating evidence, such as a newspaper article, describing the detention of any members of their Comoran Christian group.
For these reasons, [Petitioners’] fear of persecution (as opposed to societal pressure and discrimination) is not objectively reasonable. Moreover, they have not shown a pattern or practice of persecution of converts from Islam to Christianity.

(Id. at 4 (citations omitted).)

Petitioners now seek review of the BIA’s decision. 1

II.

We begin by outlining the scope of our review. As the Government correctly notes, Petitioners’ brief does not challenge the denial of their claims for withholding of removal or CAT relief. Nor does their brief contest the agency’s conclusion that they failed to establish past persecution. Accordingly, none of those issues is before us. See Laborers’ Int’l Union of N. Am., AFL-CIO v. Foster Wheeler Corp., 26 F.3d 375, 398 (3d Cir.1994) (explaining that “[a]n issue is waived unless a party raises it in its opening brief’).

What is before us is the agency’s determination that Petitioners failed to demonstrate a well-founded fear of future persecution. Because the agency’s conclusions' regarding evidence of a well-founded fear of future persecution are findings of fact, we review them for substantial evidence. Chavarria v. Gonzalez, 446 F.3d 508, 515 (3d Cir.2006). Under this deferential standard of review, we must uphold those conclusions “unless the evidence not only supports a contrary conclusion, but compels it.” Abdille v. Ashcroft, 242 F.3d 477, 483-84 (3d Cir.2001). Questions of law, meanwhile, “are reviewed de novo, subject to any applicable administrative law canons *122 of deference.” Castro v. Att’y Gen. of the U.S., 671 F.3d 356, 365 (3d Cir.2012).

III.

For an alien’s fear of future persecution to be well-founded, it “must be both subjectively and objectively reasonable.” Dong v. Att’y Gen. of the U.S., 638 F.3d 223, 228 (3d Cir.2011). “To establish objective reasonableness, petitioners must show that a reasonable person in the alien’s circumstances would fear persecution if returned to [the country in question].” Chen v. Att’y Gen. of the U.S., 676 F.3d 112, 115 (3d Cir.2011) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “Persecution” includes “threats to life, confinement, torture, and economic restrictions so severe that they constitute a threat to life or freedom,” but “does not encompass all treatment that our society regards as unfair, unjust, or even unlawful or unconstitutional.” Fatin v. INS, 12 F.3d 1233, 1240 (3d Cir.1993). Petitioners present three arguments in support of their challenge to the BIA’s future persecution analysis. We consider them in turn.

Petitioners’ first argument is that the BIA misinterpreted certain evidence, and that it failed to consider two internet articles and the U.S. State Department’s 2007 Country Report for Comoros. 2 We find this claim unpersuasive. First, we find no error in the BIA’s interpretation of the evidence that it specifically discussed in its decision. Second, we are not necessarily convinced that the BIA overlooked any evidence here. As we have previously stated, the BIA need not “discuss every piece of evidence mentioned by an asylum applicant.” Huang v. Att’y Gen. of the U.S., 620 F.3d 372, 388 (3d Cir.2010).

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502 F. App'x 119, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/anrifat-aboubakar-v-attorney-general-united-states-ca3-2012.