Case ID: f-appx_542/html/0025-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Agrim DELIU, aka Rexap Cuni, Petitioner, v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., United States Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 11-3201.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Oct. 21, 2013.
    Michael P. DiRaimondo, Melville, NY, for Petitioner.
    Tony West, Assistant Attorney General; Susan Houser, Senior Litigation Counsel; Francis W. Fraser, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.
    PRESENT: JOHN M. WALKER, JR., ROSEMARY S. POOLER, and PETER W. HALL, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

Agrim Deliu, a native and citizen of Albania, seeks review of a July 19, 2011, decision of the BIA denying his motion to reopen. In re Agrim Deliu, No. [ AXXX XXX XXX ] (B.I.A. July 19, 2011). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and procedural history of this case.

We review the BIA’s denial of Deliu’s motion to reopen for abuse of discretion. Ali v. Gonzales, 448 F.3d 515, 517 (2d Cir.2006). Although Deliu’s motion was indisputably untimely because it was filed more than four years after the agency’s final order of removal, see 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(i), there is no time limitation for filing a motion to reopen if it is “based on changed country conditions arising in the country of nationality or the country to which removal has been ordered, if such evidence is material and was not available and would not have been discovered or presented at the previous proceeding,” 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(ii). The BIA reasonably found that Deliu’s motion to reopen did not qualify for such an exception.

Although Deliu argues that the BIA failed to consider new and material evidence of changed conditions in Albania, his argument is unavailing. The BIA expressly discussed the affidavit submitted by Deliu’s expert witness, Prenk Camaj, and the newspaper articles describing a January 2011 incident in which Albanian riot police killed three supporters of the Socialist Party during a political demonstration. See Jian Hui Shao v. Mukasey, 546 F.3d 138, 169 (2d Cir.2008) (noting that the BIA does not need to “expressly parse or refute” every piece of evidence submitted by the petitioner (quoting Zhi Yun Gao v. Mukasey, 508 F.3d 86, 87 (2d Cir.2007))); Xiao Ji Chen v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 471 F.3d 315, 337 n. 17 (2d Cir.2006) (noting that this Court will “presume that [the BIA] has taken into account all of the evidence before [it], unless the record compellingly suggests otherwise”).

Moreover, nothing in the record compels the conclusion that the BIA abused its discretion in finding that the evidence Deliu submitted was not material to his claim that he feared persecution on account of his pro-democracy political activities in Albania. Indeed, the BIA— acknowledging that Deliu’s evidence suggested some degree of political instability in Albania resulting from the decades-old rivalry between the Democratic Party and the Socialist Party — reasonably found that the record evidence did not support Prenk Camaj’s assertion that thousands of politically motivated killings had continued to occur in the years following Deliu’s 2004 proceedings, especially during the 2009 parliamentary elections. See Siewe v. Gonzales, 480 F.3d 160, 167 (2d Cir.2007) (“Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Furthermore, while the BIA acknowledged that Camaj’s affidavit indicated that two Albania politicians had been killed during the 2009 parliamentary elections, it reasonably found that the record evidence did not establish that Albania’s ruling regime, led by Democratic Party Prime Minister Sali Berisha, was involved in the killings or had condoned them. Id. Finally, the BIA reasonably found that the January 2011 incident in which three Socialist Party protestors were killed by Albanian police during a political demonstration appeared to be an isolated incident of violence rather than an indication of escalating political strife in Albania. Id. Indeed, we have previously taken judicial notice of the fact that country conditions in Albania have improved rather than worsened since Albania’s 2005 elections. See Hoxhallari v. Gonzales, 468 F.3d 179, 187 (2d Cir.2006).

Accordingly, because the record does not suggest that the BIA ignored any evidence and because substantial evidence supports the BIA’s conclusion that Deliu failed to demonstrate changed conditions in Albania since his 2004 proceedings that would materially affect his eligibility for relief, the BIA did not abuse its discretion in denying his motion to reopen as untimely. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(ii).

For the foregoing reasons, the petition for review is DENIED.