Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-15-01975/USCOURTS-ca8-15-01975-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Salome Garcia
Petitioner
Loretta E. Lynch
Respondent

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 15-1975

___________________________

Salome Garcia

lllllllllllllllllllllPetitioner

v.

Loretta E. Lynch, Attorney General of the United States

lllllllllllllllllllllRespondent

____________

Petition for Review of an Order of the

 Board of Immigration Appeals

____________

 Submitted: April 15, 2016

 Filed: July 13, 2016

[Unpublished]

____________

Before GRUENDER, BRIGHT, and KELLY, Circuit Judges.

____________

PER CURIAM.

Salome Garcia, a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions for review of the

Board ofImmigration Appeals’s (“BIA”) decision denying his application for asylum,

withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture

(“CAT”), and ordering his removal. We deny Garcia’s petition.

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Garcia entered the United States without inspection on June 4, 1991. He was

apprehended by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) one week later.

At that time, the INS served Garcia with an order charging him with being deportable

under the former section 241(a)(1)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Two

months later, Garcia filed a motion to change venue from Harlingen, Texas to Los

Angeles,California and also submitted a FormI-589 requestfor asylum, accompanied

by a copy of his El Salvadoran birth certificate. Garcia’s motion was granted, and he

appeared for a hearing in Los Angeles on December 3, 1991. At the hearing, he

withdrew his asylumapplication, received until May 3, 1992 for voluntary departure,

and waived appeal. Garcia failed to depart the United States within the voluntarydeparture period, and a warrant for his deportation was issued on February 9, 1995. 

Meanwhile, on March 30, 1992, Garcia filed a second asylum application with

the INS. In this application, Garcia falsely claimed to be a native and citizen of

Guatemala and presented a falsified Guatemalan birth certificate. This application

remained pending with the INS (and its successor agency, the United States Citizen

and Immigration Services(“USCIS”)) until August 2005, when Garcia testified to an

asylum officer in Kansas City in support of his second asylumapplication. On March

25, 2008, the USCIS issued a notice of intent to deny his application. The USCIS

found Garcia not credible, citing the discrepancies between his first and second

asylum applications, particularly Garcia’s birthplace. The USCIS formally denied

Garcia’s second asylum application on September 8, 2008. 

The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) subsequently initiated the

current removal proceedings against Garcia, serving him with a notice to appear

(“NTA”) and charging him with being removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(I)

as an alien present in the United States without having been admitted or paroled. On

October 13, 2011, Garcia appeared before an immigration judge (“IJ”) and, through

counsel, admitted the factual allegations in the NTA (except for his country of

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Appellate Case: 15-1975 Page: 2 Date Filed: 07/13/2016 Entry ID: 4425350 
nationality and citizenship) and conceded removability. The IJ designated El

Salvador as the country of removal, with Guatemala as the alternative. 

Seeking relief from removal, Garcia filed a third application for asylum,

withholding of removal, and relief under the CAT. In evaluating this application, the

IJ considered several documents, including the NTA; Garcia’s 1992 asylum

application; his October 2011 written pleading; his motion to permit the late filing of

witness and exhibit lists for that day’s hearing; Garcia’s amended third I-589 asylum

application; and notarized translations of newspaper articles regarding country

conditions in El Salvador. The IJ also took administrative notice of the most recent

State Department country-conditions reports for El Salvador and Guatemala, while

excluding as untimely filed two exhibits that previously had been submitted and

already were in the record. The IJ rendered a written decision denying Garcia’s

application because he had not presented credible testimony. The IJ nonetheless

proceeded to the merits for “the sake of completeness,” finding Garcia’s claims

defeated by fundamental changes in country conditions in El Salvador and

Guatemala. The IJ granted Garcia a 60-day period of voluntary departure in lieu of

removal or, failing voluntary departure, removal to El Salvador or, in the alternative,

Guatemala. Garcia appealed to the BIA, which issued a written decision dismissing

the appeal, declining to reinstate Garcia’s period of voluntary departure, and ordering

Garcia removed from the United States pursuant to the IJ’s alternate order.

“We review the BIA’s legal determinations de novo, but we accord substantial

deference to the BIA’s interpretation of the statutes and regulations it administers.” 

Etenyi v. Lynch, 799 F.3d 1003, 1006 (8th Cir. 2015) (quoting Garcia-Gonzalez v.

Holder, 737 F.3d 498, 500 (8th Cir. 2013)). We disturb the BIA’s findings of fact

only if unsupported by substantial evidence and if “any reasonable adjudicator would

be compelled to conclude to the contrary.” Id. (quoting Goswell-Renner v. Holder,

762 F.3d 696, 699 (8th Cir. 2014)).

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Garcia contends that the BIA violated his due process rights by dismissing his

appeal of the IJ’s order because the dismissal was arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse

of discretion. “To establish a due process claim, an alien must prove prejudice that

‘potentially affects the outcome.’” Zacarias-Velasquez v. Mukasey, 509 F.3d 429,

434-35 (8th Cir. 2007) (quoting Tun v. Gonzales, 485 F.3d 1014, 1026 (8th Cir.

2007)). “We review de novo due process claims in immigration proceedings.” Id.

at 435.

Although, as Garcia argues, “[i]t is well established that the Fifth Amendment

entitles aliensto due process of law in deportation proceedings,” Reno v. Flores, 507

U.S. 292, 306 (1993), the entitlement to due process does not represent an entitlement

to a favorable outcome of that process. Because the briefs supporting Garcia’s

petition do not raise any meaningful argument regarding how or why the BIA’s

dismissal violated his right to due process other than by its affirmance of the IJ’s

unfavorable decision , we consider such a broad due process claimwaived. See Awad

v. Gonzales, 494 F.3d 723, 727 (8thCir. 2007) (declining to address a petitioner’s due

process claims because they “principally reiterate[d] his disagreement with the IJ’s

and BIA’s determinations against him”); Chay-Velasquez v. Ashcroft, 367 F.3d 751,

756 (8th Cir. 2004) (considering a claim waived when petitioner made “no

meaningful argument on this claim in his opening brief”). Nonetheless, to the extent

that Garcia challenges the IJ’s exclusion of the two exhibits filed on the day of his

merits hearing as untimely, Garcia cannot prove prejudice because, asthe BIA noted,

not only were the exhibits included elsewhere in the record, but they also were

discussed in the IJ’s written decision. Accordingly, Garcia’s due process claim fails.

To the extent that Garcia’s petition instead asserts a challenge to the IJ’s

adverse-credibility determination, this claim is not properly before us. We do not

have jurisdiction to address claims not raised before the IJ or BIA. Juarez Chilel v.

Holder, 779 F.3d 850, 856 n.2 (8th Cir. 2015). “[W]e review the IJ’s findings only

to the extent that they were adopted by the BIA.” Etenyi, 799 F.3d at 1006. Here, the

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BIA did not adopt any of the findings underpinning the IJ’s adverse-credibility

determination but instead found Garcia’s appeal not to include a meaningful

challenge of the IJ’s adverse-credibility determination. Upon review of the record,

we agree with the BIA that Garcia did not raise an adverse-credibility challenge. In

his brief before the BIA, Garcia asserted as his primary basis for appeal that the IJ’s

decision to deny his I-589 application denied him due process because it was

arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion. The remainder of his BIA appeal

brief, similar to the briefs in support of his petition to our court, reiterated Garcia’s

arguments on the merits of his petition. Rather than arguing that the IJ committed

specific errors, Garcia instead argued that the IJ erred by denying his petition on the

merits. Such a “broad attempt to incorporate unspecified arguments d[oes]not ‘raise’

any particular issue before the Board.” Martinez Carcamo v. Holder, 713 F.3d 916,

925 (8th Cir. 2013). Because we “do not expect the Board to address veiled

arguments we would not consider ourselves,” the BIA correctly found that Garcia had

waived any challenge to the IJ’s adverse-credibility determination. See id.

All applications for asylum and withholding of removal require a threshold

determination of the applicant’s credibility. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii). 

Because Garcia’s claims for asylum and withholding of removal were dependent on

the credibility of his testimony and because the IJ’s adverse-credibility determination

remains undisturbed, the BIA correctly determined that Garcia was not eligible for

asylum or withholding of removal. See Guled v. Mukasey, 515 F.3d 872, 880-81 (8th

Cir. 2008); Lybesha v. Holder, 569 F.3d 877, 881 (8th Cir. 2009) (“Because

petitioners’ withholding of removal . . . claim[] [is] based on the same inconsistent

testimony, the adverse credibility findings are fatal to both claims.”). The BIA thus 1

did not err by dismissing Garcia’s appeal.

For the reasons set forth above, we deny Garcia’s petition.

As Garcia did not challenge the IJ’s decision regarding his CAT claim before 1

the BIA, we do not consider this claim here. See Juarez Chilel, 779 F.3d at 856 n.2.

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BRIGHT, Circuit Judge, with whom KELLY, Circuit Judge, joins, concurring.

I concur in the court’s opinion denying relief in court proceedingsto petitioner

Garcia.

I write separately to observe that in denying relief Garcia will be separated

from his family – his wife and two adult daughters, all United States citizens.

Garcia has been a crime-free resident of this country for more than twenty

years. A 2011 policy memorandum by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

(ICE) Director John Morton directs ICE personnel to weigh certain factors when

determining whether to exercise their prosecutorial discretion in removal proceedings

consistent with the priorities ofthe agency, including “the person’s length of presence

in the United States”; “the person’s criminal history”; and “whether the person has

a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse, child, or parent.” Memorandum from

John Morton, Dir., U.S. Immigration & Customs Enf’t, to All Field Office Directors,

All Special Agents in Charge, All Chief Counsel, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enf’t

4 (June 17, 2011), https://www.ice.gov/doclib/secure-communities/pdf/prosecutorial

-discretion-memo.pdf. 

This new policy took effect in June 2011, two months after the Department of

Homeland Security initiated the current removal proceedings against Garcia. 

Nonetheless, this policy allows ICE personnel to exercise their prosecutorial

discretion “at any stage of an enforcement proceeding.” Id. at 5. I suggest that the

agency may now wish to exercise prosecutorial discretion to save this family from a

separate existence and allow Garcia to stay with his wife and daughters in the United

States. Garcia does not seem to pose any risk of harm to anyone should he remain in

this country.

______________________________

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