Case ID: f-appx_435/html/0615-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Irene Carolin SIWY, Petitioner, v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 08-72940.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    
      Submitted May 24, 2011.
    
    Filed June 1, 2011.
    Gihan L. Thomas, Esquire, Law Offices of Gihan L. Thomas, Los Angeles, CA, for Petitioner.
    Jacob Bashyrov, Esquire, OIL, DOJ-U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division/Office of Immigration Litigation, Washington, DC, CAC-District Counsel, Esquire, Office of the District Counsel, Department of Homeland Security, Los Angeles, CA, Ronald E. Lefevre, Office of the District Counsel, Department of Homeland Security, San Francisco, CA, for Respondent.
    Before: PREGERSON, THOMAS, and PAEZ, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
   MEMORANDUM

Irene Carolin Siwy, a native and citizen of Indonesia, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order dismissing her appeal from an immigration judge’s decision denying her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review for substantial evidence factual findings. INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481 & n. 1, 112 S.Ct. 812, 117 L.Ed.2d 38 (1992). We deny in part and grant in part the petition for review, and we remand.

The record does not compel the conclusion that Siwy’s untimely asylum application is excused by changed or extraordinary circumstances. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(D); Ramadan v. Gonzales, 479 F.3d 646, 657-58 (9th Cir.2007) (per curiam); Toj-Culpatan v. Holder, 612 F.3d 1088, 1091 (9th Cir.2010) (per curiam). Accordingly, Siwy’s asylum claim fails.

Substantial evidence supports the agency’s finding that the discrimination Siwy faced as a child, the sexual harassment, and the fact that she witnessed violence during the 1998 riots does not, cumulatively, rise to the level of persecution. See Hoxha v. Ashcroft, 319 F.3d 1179, 1182 (9th Cir.2003). However, because the record compels the conclusion that Siwy was sexually harassed on account of a protected ground, see Parussimova v. Mukasey, 555 F.3d 734, 740-41 (9th Cir.2009) (“The Real ID Act requires that a protected ground represent ‘one central reason’ for an asylum applicant’s persecution”), the agency’s analysis of whether Siwy faces an individualized risk of harm, which focused only on the documentary evidence, is insufficient. Moreover, in assessing her withholding of removal claim, the BIA did not have the benefit of our intervening decision in Wakkary v. Holder, 558 F.3d 1049, 1064-67 (9th Cir.2009), which applied the disfavored group analysis to withholding of removal claims. Accordingly, we grant Siwy’s petition for review as to her withholding of removal claim and remand for the agency to consider in the first instance whether Siwy has demonstrated a clear probability of future persecution based on a disfavored group analysis. See INS v. Ventura, 537 U.S. 12, 16-18, 123 S.Ct. 353, 154 L.Ed.2d 272 (2002) (per curiam).

Finally, the BIA also failed to address Siwy’s claim for relief under CAT. Accordingly, we also remand for the BIA to consider Siwy’s CAT claim in the first instance. See id.

Each party shall bear its own costs for this petition for review.

PETITION FOR REVIEW DENIED in part; GRANTED in part; REMANDED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.