Putu Indrawati v. U.S. Attorney General

779 F.3d 1284, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 3117
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedMarch 2, 2015
Docket13-12071
StatusPublished
Cited by169 cases

This text of 779 F.3d 1284 (Putu Indrawati v. U.S. Attorney General) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Putu Indrawati v. U.S. Attorney General, 779 F.3d 1284, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 3117 (11th Cir. 2015).

Opinion

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

Putu Indrawati petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order affirming the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) decision that she is barred from adjustment of status because she knowingly filed a frivolous asylum application. 1 Indrawati raises three claims. First, she argues that the IJ denied her a sufficient opportunity to account for any discrepancies or implausible aspects of her claim, in contravention of In re Y-L-, 24 I. & N. Dec. 151 (2007). Second, she argues that the IJ’s reliance upon three documents—a photocopy of a ten page addendum to her 1-589 application for asylum, an Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) memorandum recounting an interview conducted with Indrawati’s mother, and a memorandum detailing asylum fraud committed by the man who handled Indra-wati’s application—violated her right to due process. Third, she argues that the BIA’s decision reflects a lack of reasoned consideration.

We conclude that we are without jurisdiction to consider Indrawati’s arguments regarding the sufficiency of her opportunity to account for discrepancies and implausible aspects of her claim. We are also without jurisdiction to consider her due process argument concerning the INS memorandum. Moving to the merits, we find unavailing her remaining due process claims, along with her claim that the BIA’s decision lacks reasoned consideration. Accordingly, we dismiss in part and deny in part her petition for review.

I.

A.

Putu Indrawati, an ethnically Chinese Christian, was born in Indonesia in 1974. *1290 In 1998, she entered the United States legally as a tourist. Sometime thereafter, she enrolled in community college in Gainesville, Florida. Although she originally intended to return permanently to Indonesia upon graduation, her plans shifted following an incident in December 2000. At that time, Indrawati returned to Indonesia to attend her grandmother’s funeral and to obtain an F-l student visa so that she could continue studying in the United States. According to Indrawati, she went shopping with a friend in a Surabaya 2 mall after acquiring her visa. As she entered the parking lot to leave, a group of Indonesian men assaulted her and her friend. The men shouted ethnic slurs at Indrawati, and one choked her. Indrawati screamed, and the men scattered. 3 Although Indrawati did not alert the authorities, she immediately told her parents about the ordeal.

This incident, combined with encouragement from Herlina Suherman—a fellow ethnically Chinese Christian student 4 that Indrawati described as “pretty much the closest friend that I had in the U.S.”— convinced Indrawati to apply for asylum. Suherman explained that her boss, Hans Gouw, could help Indrawati. Gouw was a purportedly upstanding member of the immigrant Chinese-Indonesian community. He led the Chinese Indonesian American Society and had helped Suherman acquire asylum. Suherman explained that Gouw could help Indrawati too—for a fee. Although she could read and write English and presumably could have completed the 1-589 form personally, Indrawati—like so many others confronted by impenetrable government forms—relied on a third party’s expertise. Suherman and Gouw were on the case.

According to Indrawati, her involvement in the application filing process was minimal. She signed a blank 1-589 5 and truthfully answered biographical questions Suh-erman posed to her over the telephone. Indrawati also provided Suherman with her birth certificate, passport, and money to pay for Gouw’s assistance. Suherman and Gouw would apparently use this information to file a true and correct asylum application; all Indrawati would have to do was attend an asylum interview. That In-drawati would not see her application prior to the interview evidently bothered her not.

On January 27, 2003, the INS received the application. The enclosed Form 1-589 Application for Asylum and Withholding of Removal revealed that Indrawati sought asylum based upon her ethnicity and religion. The 1-589 alleged that Indrawati had “long been subject to persecution” by Muslim-Indonesian extremists because she was a Chinese Christian. It also (falsely) stated that many of Indrawati’s “Chinese and Christian friends have been persecuted, tortured and killed in the past few years, since 1998.” The completed I-589 form did not mention the Surabaya assault that allegedly precipitated Indra- *1291 wati’s pursuit of asylum. This was not a surprising omission given the form’s instruction to “attach documents evidencing ... the specific facts on which you are relying to support your [asylum] claim.”

Indeed, appended to the completed form was a ten-page statement (“Statement”) that recounted two events supporting In-drawati’s asylum claim. The first event was an embellished version of the Surabaya assault. Whereas the actual event involved only ethnic slurs and choking, the Statement recounted a sexual assault. According to the Statement, Indrawati’s assailants stripped her and knocked her unconscious, resulting in her hospitalization. The Statement’s second event was entirely fabricated. It detailed an attack on a Christian prayer meeting at Indrawati’s home. Twenty Muslim men allegedly broke into Indrawati’s house, beat her father and the pastor, and threatened the entire group with further reprisal should they continue to practice Christianity. In reality, Indrawati’s parents were Buddhists and there was never any prayer meeting or attack at their home.

In response to her application, the INS scheduled an asylum interview with Indra-wati. On March 20, 2003, Asylum Officer Miguel Rodez conducted the interview. Although Rodez unquestionably possessed the Statement, the parties dispute whether or not he relied upon or referenced its contents at the interview. 6 Neither party, however, disputes that Rodez questioned Indrawati regarding her 1-589, made corrections to that form (along with red checkmarks), and took three pages of handwritten notes.

In these notes, Rodez placed a check-mark indicating that Indrawati had not “received medical attention.” This directly conflicted with the Statement’s assertion that Indrawati was hospitalized following the Surabaya assault. His notes also stated that Indrawati’s worst problem occurred in 2000 at a mall and that “2 men tried to rape her.” Rodez also wrote that Indrawati’s “story conforms to I[]589 statement^] see attached.”

A week later, Rodez wrote a report recommending a grant of asylum. By this point, Rodez’s copy of the Statement was replete with red checkmarks like those on the 1-589. His recommendation’s reliance upon the indisputably fraudulent Statement was manifest. He referenced the two incidents detailed in the Statement and quoted dialogue contained therein verbatim. On the basis of his recommendation, the INS approved Indrawati’s application for asylum.

B.

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779 F.3d 1284, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 3117, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/putu-indrawati-v-us-attorney-general-ca11-2015.