Husam F. Hamdan v. Alberto Gonzales, 1 United States Attorney General

425 F.3d 1051, 2005 WL 2556652
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedOctober 13, 2005
Docket03-4039, 04-1484
StatusPublished
Cited by59 cases

This text of 425 F.3d 1051 (Husam F. Hamdan v. Alberto Gonzales, 1 United States Attorney General) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Husam F. Hamdan v. Alberto Gonzales, 1 United States Attorney General, 425 F.3d 1051, 2005 WL 2556652 (7th Cir. 2005).

Opinion

COFFEY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff-Appellant Husam Fakhri Ham-dan, a native of Kuwait and former resident of Jordan, petitions the court for review of two orders of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), one affirming without opinion an immigration judge’s decision to deny his application for adjustment of status and the other denying his motion to the BIA to reconsider its summary affirmance of the immigration judge’s decision. In both petitions, 2 Ham-dan requests that we review the BIA’s use of its streamlining procedure to affirm the immigration judge’s decision denying him relief and ordering his removal to Jordan. Hamdan argues that the immigration judge made a legal error in adjudicating his application and that the BIA erred in streamlining his appeal and affirming the judge’s decision without issuing a written opinion explaining why it refused to correct the alleged errors. In a related argument, Hamdan also claims that aggressive questioning by the immigration judge during his adjustment of status hearing violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. For the following reasons, we deny Hamdan’s consolidated petition.

I. Background

Hamdan, a Palestinian born in Kuwait in 1966, initially entered the United States on a student visa in 1984 and then returned to Kuwait in 1985. In 1990, Hamdan, his parents, and his brother fled to Jordan. While in Jordan, Hamdan obtained a Jordanian passport and a United States non-immigrant visa, allowing him to travel from Jordan to the U.S. In December of 1993, Hamdan re-entered the U.S. on a subsequent student visa. He did not leave the U.S. upon the expiration of his visa in 1994. Rather, on September 12, 1997, Hamdan filed an application for asylum with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”), 3 seeking (1) political asylum, (2) withholding of removal, and (3) protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”).

A. Hamdan’s Asylum Application 4

In his asylum application, Hamdan claimed to have been mistreated in Kuwait *1053 and Jordan because of his race, nationality, membership in a particular social group, and political opinion. In particular, .Ham-dan alleged that the Jordanian police beat him because he was a Palestinian who was critical of the Jordanian government’s mistreatment of Palestinians and also because he was a member of a particular social group that was persecuted, namely, Palestinian refugees from Kuwait living in Jordan.

During his asylum hearing, he stated that he was a member of a political organization (which he did not identify by name) that held rallies to create an awareness of the mistreatment of Palestinians in Jordan. Hamdan alleged that he was detained by Jordanian authorities on five occasions in 1991 due to his membership in the unidentified group. Hamdan testified that during his first detention, Jordanian authorities interrogated him for three hours and “slapp[ed]” and “kiek[ed]” him. He also claimed to have been beaten during his second detention. 5 He testified that his treatment was “less severe” during the other three detentions; however,' he claimed that on those occasions the Jordanian officers threatened him with torture and warned him upon his release from detention that they would continue to “monitor[ ][his] activities.” Hamdan claimed that he left Jordan in 1993 for the U.S. because he feared further persecution from the Jordanian government. Hamdan also testified that he suffered from depression and paranoid schizophrenia. His attorney claimed that the medical records demonstrated that his psychological disorders would cause him “to react to external stimulus in a fashion that is more severe than maybe other individuals would under the same circumstances .... ” He argued that Hamdan’s exaggerated response would be an injury to him “above and beyond the actual physical beatings.”

On December 30, 1999, the immigration judge (“IJ”) denied Hamdan’s request for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT. The IJ found that state department reports established that since the end of 1991, Palestinians living in Kuwait were no longer routinely assaulted by vigilante groups. As for Palestinians in Jordan, the judge assumed for the purposes of his analysis that Hamdan’s testimony was credible and that Hamdan had in fact been mistreated while detained. Nonetheless, the judge concluded that the experiences Hamdan described did not constitute “past persecution.” The judge credited Hamdan’s testimony that he felt vulnerable in Jordan due to his depression and his subjective fear of persecution should he be forced to return to Jordan. However, the judge noted that Hamdan must also demonstrate an objective, well-founded fear of persecution in Jordan and, on this issue, he determined that Hamdan had failed. Finally, the judge adopted state department reports which opined, “It would be impossible to argue ... that Palestinians are a persecuted majority in Jordan,” and found that Palestinian refugees from Kuwait living in Jordan were not members of. a designated social group eligible for asylum.

Hamdan appealed the decision of the IJ to the BIA; however, before the Board issued a decision, Hamdaris mother was granted citizenship in the United States, making him immediately eligible to apply for adjustment of status to that of a per *1054 manent resident. See 8 U.S.C. § 1255(i)(l)(B). Because a successful application for adjustment of status would allow Hamdan to remain in the U.S. indefinitely and obviate any need for him to continue with his asylum application, he filed a motion with the BIA seeking a remand to the IJ which would allow him to apply for adjustment of status. See id. The BIA granted Hamdan’s motion and remanded his case to the same IJ who had adjudicated his asylum application.

B. Hamdan’s Application for Adjustment of Status 6

The IJ held a second hearing, this time on Hamdan’s adjustment of status application, on December 21, 2001. At the hearing, Hamdan testified that he entered the U.S. in 1993 on a student visa but did not attend the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as promised in his visa application. He explained that he had several family members legally residing in the U.S., that he had maintained sporadic periods of employment since his arrival in 1993, and that he had obtained an associate degree in Applied Science from the Milwaukee Area Technical College in 1999. In addition, Hamdan disclosed that he was under the care of a psychiatrist and had been diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. He testified that on one occasion his family called the police and had him hospitalized for seven weeks due to' his mental illness. Although he was taking medication for his disorder, he testified that he was admitted to the hospital, because his medication was ineffective, causing him to act out. When pressed on cross examination for more details on why he was hospitalized, Hamdan only reiterated that it was due to the inadequacy of his medication. He further revealed that, while hospitalized, he was arrested after he broke a window and attempted to escape.

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Bluebook (online)
425 F.3d 1051, 2005 WL 2556652, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/husam-f-hamdan-v-alberto-gonzales-1-united-states-attorney-general-ca7-2005.