Evguene Borodachev v. Eric Holder, Jr.

441 F. App'x 354
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedOctober 12, 2011
Docket10-3404
StatusUnpublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 441 F. App'x 354 (Evguene Borodachev v. Eric Holder, Jr.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Evguene Borodachev v. Eric Holder, Jr., 441 F. App'x 354 (6th Cir. 2011).

Opinion

BECKWITH, Senior District Judge.

Petitioners Evguene Borodachev, Lioud-mila Borodachev, and Larisa Borodachev petition this Court to review the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) denying Petitioners’ applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the regulations implementing the United Nations’ Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We find that substantial evidence supports the decision of the BIA, and therefore deny the petition for review.

I.

Petitioners in this case are Evguene Bo-rodachev, his wife Lioudmila, and their daughter Larisa. Petitioners are citizens of Kazakhstan and lived in the capital city of Almaty. Petitioners came to the United States in 1995 on nonimmigrant B-2 visitors visas. Later, Evguene changed his status to an F-l student visa and remained on that status until August 2004. In October 2004, Petitioners filed applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the CAT based on fear of religious persecution if they were returned to Kazakhstan. Petitioners’ applications were denied and the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) initiated removal proceedings in February 2005. Petitioners renewed their applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT when they appeared before the immigration judge (“IJ”) in July 2007.

Petitioners are Baptists. They claim to have experienced religious persecution at the hands of Muslims beginning a few years after Kazakhstan became an independent country in 1991. Petitioners testified about six specific incidents in which Evguene and/or Lioudmila experienced violence or intimidation from Muslims in Kazakhstan.

In the summer of 1994, Evguene and Lioudmila were walking home when they were approached by a group of five or six Muslims. These people spit at Petitioners, called them humiliating names, and told them they had to leave the country. One of them hit Evguene in the mouth, splitting his lip, and Lioudmila was pushed to the ground and hit her elbow. Evguene reported this incident to the police but he *356 claimed that they did not conduct any investigation. He did not go to the hospital for medical treatment, however.

In the fall of 1994, Petitioners and others in the Baptist community began receiving phone calls threatening them with death and telling them they had to leave the country because they were Baptists. Evguene testified, however, that he only received one such call. These threatening calls were reported to the police, but Evguene claimed that they failed to conduct any investigation.

In December 1994, a group of Muslims approached Lioudmila on the street and attacked her for not dressing like a Muslim woman because she was not wearing a scarf around her head. Lioudmila explained that she was a Christian and was not supposed to follow Muslim rules. The group then beat Lioudmila with sticks, inflicting a concussion, causing scratches and bruises, and injuring her hand. Again, the police allegedly failed to take any action to investigate the incident.

In February 1995, Evguene was attacked by three men as he was walking home. He said these men called him “Baptist” and other derogatory names and began hitting him with rubber-covered sticks. They kept hitting Evguene after he fell to the ground and his finger was broken as he was trying to protect his head. Evguene testified that he was admitted to the hospital with a concussion, bruises, and a broken finger. Again, the police allegedly failed to take any action to investigate the incident.

Evguene testified that in March 1995 his neighbors began dumping trash at his front door. On another occasion, paint was poured in front of his door. When he was cleaning the paint from the door, one of his neighbors approached him and said, “Do you get the hint, you have to leave?” When Evguene reported this incident to the police he said they responded by stating that they never get involved in disputes between neighbors.

In July 1995, Evguene testified that he was accosted on the street by two men, one of whom had a knife. The man pointed the knife at Evguene’s stomach, called him names, and took him to a construction site. At the construction site, these men punched Evguene in the stomach and the neck so he would fall. When Evguene fell, they kept beating him, perhaps with brass knuckles. Evguene was also stabbed in the buttocks. Evguene testified that he was taken to the hospital where he received stitches for his knife wound. He said he was in the hospital for one day and then released. Evguene testified that he gave descriptions of the men who attacked him but the police did nothing.

The IJ also accepted into evidence translations of hospital records and police reports relating to some of these incidents. The IJ received into evidence two undated, unsigned letters Petitioners received from a “sister in faith” which indicate generally that conditions had worsened for Baptists since Petitioners left Kazakhstan. Evguene testified that the letters indicated that returning to Kazakhstan would be a death sentence for him and his family. The IJ also received State Department reports on Kazakhstan which state that religious freedom in Kazakhstan is generally respected.

II.

The Attorney General, in his discretion, may grant asylum to a “refugee;” i.e., “a person who is unable or unwilling to return to his home country ‘because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.’ ” Pilica *357 v. Ashcroft, 388 F.3d 941, 950 (6th Cir.2004) (quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A)). Persecution “requires more than a few isolated incidents of verbal harassment or intimidation, unaccompanied by any physical punishment, infliction of harm, or significant deprivation of liberty.” Mikhailevitch v. INS, 146 F.3d 384, 390 (6th Cir.1998). A showing of well-founded fear of future persecution requires a demonstration by the alien:

(1) that he has a fear of persecution in his home country on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion; (2) that there is a reasonable possibility of suffering such persecution if he were to return to that country; and (3) that he is unable or unwilling to return to that country because of such fear.

Pilica, 388 F.3d at 950. Applicants who establish that they have suffered past persecution are presumed to have a well-founded fear of future persecution, but this presumption may be rebutted by the government if it shows by a preponderance of the evidence that conditions in the country have changed so fundamentally that the applicant no longer has a well-founded fear of persecution. Ouda v. INS, 324 F.3d 445, 452 (6th Cir.2003).

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