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Parties Involved:
Joao Batista Dos Santos
Petitioner
Irene Goncalves de Almeida
Petitioner
Nicolas Goncalves dos Santos
Petitioner
Rafaela Goncalves dos Santos
Petitioner
U.S. Attorney General
Respondent

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 24-10601

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

JOAO BATISTA DOS SANTOS, 

IRENE GONCALVES DE ALMEIDA,

NICOLAS GONCALVES DOS SANTOS, 

RAFAELA GONCALVES DOS SANTOS, 

Petitioners,

versus

U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, 

Respondent.

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2 Opinion of the Court 24-10601

____________________

Petition for Review of a Decision of the

Board of Immigration Appeals

Agency No. A220-555-094

____________________

Before NEWSOM, GRANT, and BLACK, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Joaõ Batista Dos Santos and his wife and minor children petition this Court for review of the denial of his application1 for asylum and withholding of removal. The Immigration Judge (IJ) denied relief because she found Batista Dos Santos failed to show past 

persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution, and his 

asserted social group was not cognizable under the Immigration 

and Nationality Act. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed without opinion. After review,2 we deny the petition. 

1 Batista Dos Santos’s wife and children are derivative beneficiaries of his asylum claim. They did not file their own applications for relief.

2 When the BIA affirms the IJ’s decision without opinion, “we review the IJ’s 

decision as if it were the BIA’s.” Sanchez Jimenez v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 492 F.3d 

1223, 1231 (11th Cir. 2007) (quotation marks omitted). “The IJ’s findings of 

fact are reviewed under the substantial evidence test, and we must affirm the 

IJ’s decision if it is supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole.” Sepulveda v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 401 

F.3d 1226, 1230 (11th Cir. 2005) (quotation marks omitted, alteration adopted). 

“Under this highly deferential standard of review, the IJ’s decision can be 

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24-10601 Opinion of the Court 3

To be eligible for asylum, an applicant must prove he is a 

“refugee,” meaning he “is unable or unwilling to return to” his 

home country or avail himself of its protection “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), 1158(b)(1)(A). To 

qualify for withholding of removal, an applicant must show he was 

persecuted in, or if removed would more likely than not be persecuted in, the country of removal on account of “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A); Cendejas Rodriguez v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 

735 F.3d 1302, 1308 (11th Cir. 2013).

Persecution is “an extreme concept, requiring more than a 

few isolated incidents of verbal harassment or intimidation.” Sepulveda v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 401 F.3d 1226, 1231 (11th Cir. 2005) (quotation marks omitted); see also Sanchez Jimenez v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 492 

F.3d 1223, 1233 (11th Cir. 2007) (holding death threats, attempt to 

murder noncitizen by shooting at his moving car, and attempt to 

kidnap his daughter compelled finding of past persecution); but see 

Djonda v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 514 F.3d 1168, 1171, 1174 (11th Cir. 2008) 

(holding a minor beating and 36-hour detention, with threat of future imprisonment, did not compel finding of past persecution). In 

determining whether a noncitizen has suffered past persecution, 

we must consider the cumulative mistreatment the petitioner 

reversed only if the evidence compels a reasonable fact finder to find otherwise.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). 

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suffered. De Santamaria v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 525 F.3d 999, 1008 (11th 

Cir. 2008). Threats to others may be evidence the petitioner suffered persecution if those acts concomitantly threaten the petitioner. Id. at 1009 n.7. 

A noncitizen need not have been physically harmed to prove 

persecution. Sanchez Jimenez, 492 F.3d at 1233. Attempted murder 

categorically “is persecution,” id., and so is a “credible death threat 

by a person who has the immediate ability to act on it,” Diallo v. 

U.S. Att’y Gen., 596 F.3d 1329, 1333-34 (11th Cir. 2010) (finding persecution when noncitizen was beaten, detained, and “threatened 

with death by the same soldiers who had already killed his 

brother”); see also De Santamaria, 525 F.3d at 1008-10 (finding persecution when noncitizen was dragged from her car by the hair, 

“beaten, kidnapped, and warned of her imminent murder”). However, mere harassment, even by death threats, is not persecution. 

Sepulveda, 401 F.3d at 1231 (holding menacing phone calls and 

death threats to noncitizen, her brother, and other members of student group did not compel finding of persecution when she was 

not target in bombing of her workplace); see also Silva v. U.S. Att’y 

Gen., 448 F.3d 1229, 1237 (11th Cir. 2006) (holding a death threat 

and threatening anonymous phone calls, without more, were 

merely harassment).

We deny Batista Dos Santos’s petition because (1) substantial evidence supports the IJ’s past persecution finding, and (2) Batista Dos Santos failed to exhaust a challenge to the IJ’s future 

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24-10601 Opinion of the Court 5

persecution finding.3 As to past persecution, the mistreatment Batista Dos Santos reported focused on his wife rather than himself. 

But even assuming that all the mistreatment to which he and his 

wife testified posed concomitant threats to him, the record does 

not compel a finding of past persecution, as no one in the family 

suffered any physical harm and the only mistreatment they reported was a verbal threat passed on by friends and one instance of 

intimidation his wife suffered when she was followed by a motorcycle while walking to work. Viewed in the light most favorable 

to the IJ’s decision, these instances of threats and intimidation are 

insufficient to compel a finding of persecution. See Sepulveda, 401 

F.3d at 1230-31; Adefemi v. Ashcroft, 386 F.3d 1022, 1027 (11th Cir. 

2004) (en banc) (stating we “view the record evidence in the light 

most favorable to the agency’s decision and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of that decision”).

As to future persecution, Batista Dos Santos failed to exhaust 

a challenge to the IJ’s finding. To obtain review of a final order of 

removal, a noncitizen must have “exhausted all administrative 

remedies available . . . as of right.” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1). Before 

the BIA, Batista Dos Santos argued only that he suffered past persecution on account of a valid particular social group. He made no 

mention of the IJ’s finding he failed to show a well-founded fear of 

future persecution. Failure to exhaust is not jurisdictional, but the 

3 Because he failed to show past persecution or a well-founded fear of future 

persecution, we need not address Batista Dos Santos’s challenge to the IJ’s 

conclusion that his asserted social group was not cognizable.

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Government asserted it in its brief, so we enforce it. Santos-Zacaria 

v. Garland, 598 U.S. 411, 419, 423 (2023) (explaining the exhaustion 

requirement is a nonjurisdictional “claim-processing rule” that is 

“subject to waiver and forfeiture”); Kemokai v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 83 

F.4th 886, 891 (11th Cir. 2023) (stating we will enforce the claimprocessing rule, however, when a party asserts it).

PETITION DENIED.

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