Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-02-03942/USCOURTS-ca8-02-03942-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Benjamin Agada
Petitioner
John Ashcroft
Respondent

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

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No. 02-3942

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Benjamin Agada,

Petitioner,

v.

John Ashcroft, Attorney General of

the United States,

Respondent.

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Petition for Review of an Order of

the Board of Immigration Appeals.

 [PUBLISHED]

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Submitted: March 11, 2004

 Filed: May 14, 2004 (corrected 5/18/04)

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Before WOLLMAN, FAGG, and HANSEN, Circuit Judges. 

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HANSEN, Circuit Judge.

Benjamin Agada, a citizen of Nigeria who intentionally overstayed his visitor's

visa, petitions this court for review of an order entered by the Board of Immigration

Appeals (BIA), dismissing his appeal from an Immigration Judge's (IJ) decision

denying his requests for asylum, withholding of removal, or relief under Section 3 of

the Convention Against Torture. Agada argues that the IJ and the BIA failed to

analyze his case as one involving a "pattern and practice" of persecution of a group

with which Agada identifies, namely journalists. We deny the petition.

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I.

Agada is a 44-year-old native and citizen of Nigeria who worked as a radio

journalist for the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (Radio Nigeria) beginning in

1978. He was also an officer of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, a group which

often voiced its opposition to the government. In 1985, while working as a Senior

Producer for Radio Nigeria, Agada reported that the Nigerian government had

secretly enrolled Nigeria in the Organization of Islamic States (OIC), which required

that Islam be declared as the official religion of the nation. Shortly after Agada's

reporting on the OIC issue, he was demoted to working in the library at Radio

Nigeria, but was never fired. He was accused of embezzling from Radio Nigeria and

questioned on the charges, but no further action was taken against him. Agada

continued to work at Radio Nigeria until he came to the United States in 1991.

Although other journalists were arrested, killed, or often disappeared prior to 1998,

Agada was never detained, arrested, or harmed by the government. 

Agada came to the United States on a six-month visitor's visa in 1991 and

failed to return prior to his visa's expiration. He filed an application for asylum in

August of 1993. The Asylum Office initiated removal proceedings against Agada in

1998, charging him with being deportable under section 237(a)(1)(B) of the

Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(B) (Supp. IV 1998).

Agada conceded deportability and sought the discretionary relief of asylum, see 8

U.S.C. § 1158 (Supp. IV 1998), withholding of removal, see 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)

(Supp. IV 1998), or deferral of removal under section 3 of the Convention Against

Torture, see 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c) (2004). An IJ held a hearing on November 15,

1999, and determined that although Agada's testimony was generally credible, he had

failed to establish an objectively reasonable fear of persecution if he returned to

Nigeria. The IJ relied primarily on the changed conditions of the country that

occurred in mid-1998. The BIA affirmed the IJ's decision and dismissed Agada's

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appeal based on the IJ's "well-reasoned decision" (Add. at 2), and Agada seeks

review. 

II.

An alien is eligible for asylum if he establishes that he is unwilling to return to

his country of nationality "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." 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A) (Supp. IV 1998). Agada

claims that he has a well-founded fear of persecution if he were returned to Nigeria

based on his political opinion expressed while he worked as a journalist. Agada must

establish that his fear is both genuinely subjective and reasonably objective.

Wondmneh v. Ashcroft, 361 F.3d 1096, 1098 (8th Cir. 2004). Agada "must present

credible, direct, and specific evidence of facts that show a reasonable person in [his]

position would fear persecution if returned to [Nigeria]." Id. (internal marks omitted).

We review the BIA's denial of Agada's request for asylum to ensure that the

decision is supported by substantial evidence in the record considered as a whole. Id.

at 1097. Agada faces a "heavy burden of demonstrating that the evidence was so

compelling that no reasonable fact-finder could fail to find the requisite fear of

persecution." Id. (internal marks omitted). We review de novo Agada's claim that the

BIA applied the wrong legal standard to his claim that the Nigerian government has

a pattern and practice of persecuting journalists. Makonnen v. INS, 44 F.3d 1378,

1382 (8th Cir. 1995). 

If a government has a pattern and practice of persecuting a group of persons,

a person within that group may be entitled to asylum, despite a lack of evidence that

he will be singled out for persecution. Membership in the group may be enough to

entitle the person to asylum. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(2)(iii) (2004) (an applicant

need not establish a reasonable probability that he will be singled out for persecution

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if returned if (A) he establishes a pattern and practice of persecution against a group

similarly situated to the applicant on account of one of the five enumerated bases, and

(B) he establishes his inclusion in, and identification with, the group). We have

defined a pattern or practice of persecution as requiring "organized or systematic or

pervasive persecution." Makkonnen, 44 F.3d at 1383. 

Although neither the IJ nor the BIA referred to the regulation by name or

citation, the IJ clearly considered Agada's claim that journalists were persecuted by

the government for speaking out against it and that he would face persecution based

on the fact that he was a journalist. The IJ noted that journalists were detained and

imprisoned and that the government ignored its constitutional guarantees of freedom

of speech and freedom of the press under Nigeria's then president, General Abacha.

The IJ determined that conditions faced by journalists changed drastically in mid1998, however, following the death of General Abacha and his replacement by

General Abubakar. According to the U.S. Department of State Nigeria Country

Report on Human Rights Practices for 1998 (Country Report), following General

Abacha's death, the government significantly relaxed its restrictions on freedom of

speech and of the press and respected these rights and practices. The Country Report

also noted that all detained journalists except one (who was imprisoned by a tribunal)

were released in late 1998. The government no longer threatened journalists with

treason charges. Journalists and editors of state media no longer feared suspension

for their editorial decisions, although self-censorship continued. The IJ properly

applied the pattern or practice regulation to Agada's case. 

The need for evidence of personal persecution does not disappear merely

because the applicant claims that he is a member of a group against whom the

government has a pattern of persecution. "[T]he more egregious the showing of

group persecution–the greater the risk to all members of the group–the less evidence

of individualized persecution must be adduced." Makkonnen, 44 F.3d at 1383

(internal marks omitted). Because the evidence of persecution of journalists was not

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so egregious, particularly given the changed conditions, the IJ properly considered

the evidence that Agada's wife, sons, and siblings still live in Nigeria without harm;

Agada's ability to obtain a Nigerian passport in 1989 and to renew it from New York

in 1994; Agada's ability to leave the country without problems in 1991; and testimony

from Agada's purported expert, who testified that journalists who, like Agada, had no

prior contact with the State Security Service (SSS), were less likely to face harm than

those with prior experience with the SSS if returned to Nigeria. See Feleke v. INS,

118 F.3d 594, 598 (8th Cir. 1997) (noting that applicant failed to establish that his

position in the opposition movement was similar to those members who had been

detained). The IJ's consideration of evidence particular to Agada did not detract from

the IJ's consideration of the evidence, or lack thereof, concerning a pattern and

practice of persecution against journalists. 

Given Agada's own lack of prior persecution while working as a journalist in

Nigeria while General Abacha was in control of the government, his lack of contact

with the SSS, and the changed conditions facing journalists in Nigeria following

General Abacha's death, we hold that the IJ's decision was supported by substantial

evidence in the record. Agada's request for withholding of removal also fails, as that

claim is based on the same set of facts and requires Agada to bear a heavier burden

than does the standard for the granting of asylum. See Wondmneh, 361 F.3d at 1099

(noting the higher burden for establishing entitlement to withholding of removal,

which requires a clear probability of persecution). Likewise, the evidence supports

the IJ's decision to deny Agada's claim for protection under the Convention Against

Torture because Agada failed to establish that it is more likely than not that he will

be tortured if returned to Nigeria. See Al Tawm v. Ashcroft, 363 F.3d 740, 744 (8th

Cir. 2004).

Finally, Agada asserts that the IJ improperly refused to consider evidence of

continuing persecution of journalists, which was contrary to the 1998 Country Report

that persecution against journalists had declined significantly after General Abacha's

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death. The IJ gave greater weight to the Country Report than to Agada's reports of

continued persecution as reported by the Nigerian Media Monitor, an Internet source

with which the IJ was unfamiliar. The IJ considered the details of the Nigerian Media

Monitor reports and noted that most of the stories could not be linked to the

government or were reports that the journalists allegedly harmed were injured while

attempting to report on dangerous but legitimate uses of police force. (Add. at 16-

18.) Given the discrepancy between the detailed official Country Report that

supports the IJ's decision and the tangentially relevant reports of the lesser known

source, we cannot say "that no reasonable fact-finder could fail to find the requisite

fear of persecution." Wondmneh, 361 F.3d at 1097. 

III.

We have considered Agada's remaining arguments, and we find them

unavailing. The petition for review is denied.

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