Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-19-01892/USCOURTS-ca7-19-01892-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
William P. Barr
Respondent
Meriyu
Petitioner

Document Text:

In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 19-1892 

MERIYU, 

Petitioner, 

v.

WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General 

of the United States, 

Respondent. 

____________________ 

Petition for Review of an Order of the 

Board of Immigration Appeals. 

No. A079-319-281 

____________________ 

ARGUED DECEMBER 17, 2019 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 26, 2020 

____________________ 

Before RIPPLE, SYKES, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges. 

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge. Meriyu, an Indonesian citizen who 

is of Chinese descent and of the Buddhist faith, petitions for 

review of the denial of her motion to reopen removal proceedings that concluded more than fourteen years ago. In 

2002, Ms. Meriyu sought relief based on fear of persecution 

on account of race and religion but was ordered removed 

after she failed to appear at a hearing before an immigration 

Case: 19-1892 Document: 27 Filed: 02/26/2020 Pages: 12
2 No. 19-1892 

judge. Fourteen years later, she moved to reopen the proceedings. The Board of Immigration Appeals (“the Board”) 

upheld an IJ’s ruling that the motion was untimely and that 

she could not show a material change in country conditions 

since the hearing. She subsequently filed two motions to reopen that were denied for similar reasons. In this petition for 

review, Ms. Meriyu challenges the denial of her most recent 

motion to reopen. The Board did not abuse its discretion in 

denying her motion, and we therefore deny her petition for 

review. 

I. 

BACKGROUND 

Ms. Meriyu, now forty-nine years old, testified that she 

experienced mistreatment because of her Chinese ethnicity 

and Buddhist faith while growing up in Indonesia. In high 

school, she once was taunted on her walk to a bus stop, held 

up at knifepoint, and then sexually molested. She recalled 

being subjected to discrimination at local temples during 

Chinese New Year festivities, when Indonesian Muslims 

would “extort money” from Chinese Buddhists and “threaten us.”1 In May 1998, when large-scale riots erupted across 

the country (eventually leading to the resignation of President Suharto and the fall of the New Order government), her 

brother’s shop and her aunt’s home were looted and burned, 

and her sister’s home was vandalized. She says that the violence prompted her to leave Indonesia, and in 2000 she came 

to the United States on a six-month nonimmigrant visa. She 

overstayed. 

1 Admin. R. at 310. 

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No. 19-1892 3

Since coming to the United States, Ms. Meriyu has taken 

care of her mother, who died in 2005; married; and raised a 

child, who is now twelve years old. In 2001, Ms. Meriyu applied for asylum. In 2002, she was served with a Notice to 

Appear charging her with removability under 

8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(B), as an alien who remained longer 

than permitted after admission. At a removal hearing, 

Ms. Meriyu conceded removability but requested asylum 

and withholding of removal. Her hearing before an immigration judge was scheduled for June 2003, but she failed to 

appear and was ordered removed in absentia. Her attorney 

at the time moved to withdraw, and Ms. Meriyu’s application was denied for lack of prosecution. 

In September 2003, Ms. Meriyu moved to reopen her 

case, alleging that she did not appear at her hearing because 

she had been in an accident three days earlier and sustained 

injuries to her ankle and foot. The IJ denied the motion because she had not met her burden of establishing that her 

injuries constituted exceptional circumstances excusing her 

failure to appear for her removal hearing. The IJ added that 

Ms. Meriyu had not complied with the requirements set 

forth in Matter of Lozada, 19 I. & N. Dec. 637 (BIA 1988), to

establish ineffective assistance of counsel. 

Fourteen years later, in late 2017, Ms. Meriyu moved 

again to reopen her case, arguing that the previous IJ had 

ignored the medical evidence of her injuries and that country conditions in Indonesia had materially changed. She attached five publications describing the treatment of ethnic 

Chinese in Indonesia, three of which discussed the indictment and subsequent conviction of former Jakarta governor 

Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian of Chinese descent 

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4 No. 19-1892 

known as “Ahok,” who was sentenced to prison earlier in 

2017 on blasphemy charges after a politically motivated 

smear campaign. The IJ denied her motion, explaining, first, 

that she was not entitled to equitable tolling (because she 

had not introduced corroborative evidence of her foot injuries, for instance), and, second, that she had not shown that 

conditions in Indonesia had materially changed (because her 

evidence reflected only “ongoing discrimination and mistreatment” by certain segments of society).2 

Ms. Meriyu appealed, and the Board upheld the IJ’s decision. The Board explained that her motion to reopen was untimely, having been filed more than fourteen years after entry of the final administrative removal order; that 

Ms. Meriyu failed to show that she exercised due diligence 

to equitably toll the ninety-day filing deadline for motions to 

reopen; and that she had not established that conditions in 

Indonesia had materially changed since her 2003 hearing. 

The Board concurred in the IJ’s findings that the record evidence showed that the ongoing discrimination and mistreatment by some segments of Indonesian society were 

“similar and not materially different” from the conditions 

alleged by Ms. Meriyu in her asylum application.3 

In November 2018, Ms. Meriyu filed a motion to reopen 

and reconsider with the Board, insisting that conditions in 

Indonesia had changed materially since 2003. Around 2003, 

she noted, Indonesia had been promoting racial and ethnic 

tolerance, loosening its policy towards minorities, and even 

inviting them to participate in politics. By 2017, however, 

2 Id. at 131. 

3 Id. at 27. 

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No. 19-1892 5

ethnicity and religion “came to the fore again”: Intolerant 

groups protested the governorship of the Chinese Christian 

politician Ahok, who later was imprisoned on charges of 

blasphemy.4 

In April 2019, the Board denied her motion, reiterating 

that the motion to reopen was untimely and that the doctrine 

of equitable tolling did not apply. The Board also stood by its 

prior finding that Ms. Meriyu had not established that conditions had materially changed for ethnic Chinese and Buddhist minorities in Indonesia. 

II. 

DISCUSSION 

Our review is limited to the Board’s April 2019 denial of 

Ms. Meriyu’s motion to reopen and reconsider. Generally, an 

alien may file only one motion to reopen and that motion 

must be filed within ninety days of the final administrative 

order of removal. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(A) & (C); 8 C.F.R. 

§ 1003.2(c). Because Ms. Meriyu did not file her motion to 

reopen until 2017, some fourteen years after the filing deadline, she may reopen her case only if she shows material evidence of changed country conditions in Indonesia. See 8 

U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(ii); see also 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(3)(ii). 

The deadline does not apply if the motion is based on 

changed country conditions, as long as the supporting evidence is material, and was not previously available and 

could not have been discovered or presented at the prior 

hearing. 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(ii); 8 C.F.R. 

§ 1003.2(c)(3)(ii); see Joseph v. Holder, 579 F.3d 827, 833–34 (7th 

4 Id. at 16. 

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6 No. 19-1892 

Cir. 2009). Changed country conditions must reflect more 

than a “cumulative worsening” of circumstances. Boika v. 

Holder, 727 F.3d 735, 739 (7th Cir. 2013). However, they “need 

not reach the level of a broad social or political change in a 

country; a personal or local change might suffice.” Lin Xing 

Jiang v. Holder, 639 F.3d 751, 756 (7th Cir. 2011). We review 

the denial of the motion to reopen for an abuse of discretion. 

Boika, 727 F.3d at 738. 

Ms. Meriyu first challenges the Board’s determination 

that her evidence showed mistreatment that was merely ongoing rather than suggestive of a material change. She argues that the Board overlooked the “growing pattern” of increased enforcement of Indonesia’s blasphemy laws and the 

“threat such laws pose to religious minorities.”5 

Because Ms. Meriyu seeks to overturn the denial of her 

motion to reconsider, she must “identif[y] specific factual or 

legal errors in [the Board’s] prior ruling.” Shaohua He v. Holder, 781 F.3d 880, 882 (7th Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). Where a petitioner raises “potentially meritorious 

arguments,” the Board must consider those arguments, and 

we have “frequently remanded cases” where the Board 

failed to do so. Kebe v. Gonzales, 473 F.3d 855, 857 (7th Cir. 

2007). 

Its assessment may have been sparse, but the Board was 

not required to give an “exegesis on every contention,” 

Mansour v. INS, 230 F.3d 902, 908 (7th Cir. 2000) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). What it did say was sufficient to 

address the scant evidence that Ms. Meriyu put into the record. In its order of April 10, 2019, the Board addressed 

5 Appellant’s Br. 9. 

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No. 19-1892 7

Ms. Meriyu’s contention that the record evidence showed 

there had been an “end to the long-established hostility 

against minorities” around the time of her 2003 hearing.6

The Board concluded that this claim was “not otherwise 

borne out by the evidence in the record.”7 It determined that 

the record did not reflect materially changed country conditions. Some of the reports Ms. Meriyu submitted described 

adverse conditions (including racially-tinged protests of an 

ethnic Chinese Christian governor), but others chronicled 

improvement (especially in the conditions for ethnic Chinese 

in the decade after Suharto’s fall). In light of the paucity of 

her evidence, the Board’s conclusion that country conditions 

had not materially changed was not unreasonable. 

Ms. Meriyu next contends that the Board erred by failing 

to take administrative notice of the U.S. Department of State 

country reports, which, she submits, confirm that the Indonesian government’s increased enforcement of blasphemy 

laws was “fuel[ing] discrimination and abuse against religious minorities.”8 Specifically, Ms. Meriyu argues that the 

Board underappreciated the significance of not only the conviction of the Chinese Christian politician Ahok but also the 

conviction of an ethnic Chinese woman from Ms. Meriyu’s 

home city who was sentenced to eighteen months in prison 

after she asked a mosque to lower the volume of its loudspeakers. 

6 Admin. R. at 8 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

7 Id. at 8. 

8 Appellant’s Br. 10. 

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Even though the Board may take administrative notice of 

the country reports not considered by the IJ, no regulation or 

court decision requires the Board to do so. See 8 C.F.R. 

§ 1003.1(d)(3)(iv) (providing that the Board may not engage 

in factfinding but may take administrative notice of commonly known facts including current events or the contents of 

official documents); Meghani v. INS, 236 F.3d 843, 848 (7th 

Cir. 2001) (explaining that the Board is not required to take 

judicial notice sua sponte of new country reports). That is 

not to say that the Board can simply ignore current developments. We may take judicial notice of more recent country 

reports, even where the Board does not do so. Lin Xing Jiang, 

639 F.3d at 756 n.2. Country reports may sometimes be the 

“best source of information” about conditions in a country, 

Ping Zheng v. Holder, 701 F.3d 237, 242 (7th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted), but their generalized nature 

often limits their discussion of more specific or local problems, Gomes v. Gonzales, 473 F.3d 746, 756 (7th Cir. 2007); see 

also U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Country Conditions Research, 

https://www.justice.gov/ eoir/country-conditions-research 

(last visited Feb. 21, 2020) (explaining that country reports 

are not necessarily exhaustive and are not meant to be conclusive in asylum cases). 

The country reports that Ms. Meriyu cites do not cause us 

to question the Board’s conclusion that conditions in Indonesia had not materially changed. Foremost, conditions in Indonesia in 2003 were worse than Ms. Meriyu suggests. In her 

telling, conditions in 2003 marked “the end in the longestablished hostility against the minorities,” yet by 2017, 

ethnic tensions had spiked, as illustrated by Ahok’s convicCase: 19-1892 Document: 27 Filed: 02/26/2020 Pages: 12
No. 19-1892 9

tion.9 This version, however, is not supported by the U.S. 

Department of State reports from 2003 to 2018. These reports 

describe continuing violence throughout 2003. According to 

the report from 2003, “[t]errorists, civilians, and armed 

groups also committed serious human rights abuses during 

the year, and the Government was in some cases unable or 

unwilling to prevent these abuses.” U.S. Dep’t of State, Bureau of Democracy, H.R. and Lab., Indonesia: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – 2003, 2 (Feb. 25, 2004). 

The report explains that the 1998 riots may have ended by 

2003, but the government still had “failed to make progress 

in establishing accountability for the ... riots, which included 

acts of torture and other attacks against Chinese Indonesian 

women in Jakarta and other cities.” Id. at 8. 

The United States also publishes reports specifically addressing issues of religious freedom. Although there was no 

U.S. Department of State International Religious Freedom 

Report available for the year 2003, the reports from around 

that period—2000 and 2004—reflect that it was a violent time 

in Indonesia, not a harbinger of peace. The 2000 report detailed religious violence and ineffective government response. According to the 2004 report, terrorist attacks persisted through 2003, and “[t]he Government failed to hold 

accountable some religious extremists.” U.S. Dep’t of State, 

Bureau of Democracy, H.R. and Lab., Indonesia: International Religious Freedom Report 2004, 1 (Aug. 15, 2005). 

When compared to the 2003 conditions described in the 

State Department reports, current conditions in Indonesia do 

not reflect any “new threshold” of human rights abuses. Boi9 Admin. R. at 16. 

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10 No. 19-1892 

ka, 727 F.3d at 739. The U.S. Department of State Country 

Reports on Human Rights Practices and International Religious Freedom for the years 2016 through 2018 do not undermine the Board’s determination that conditions have not 

materially changed. Moreover, our independent review of 

the State Department’s Human Rights and Religious Freedom reports from 2016 to 2018 turned up only occasional 

references to violence toward ethnic Chinese and Buddhists, 

and none that could be characterized as persecution. 

Finally, Ms. Meriyu argues that the Board’s conclusion is 

at odds with decisions from other circuits that have found a 

material change in conditions for religious minorities in Indonesia. She points first to Liem v. Att’y Gen., 921 F.3d 388 

(3d Cir. 2019), in which the Third Circuit remanded the case 

because the Board failed to consider extensive evidence of 

worsening conditions for Indonesian Christians. But Liem

does not help Ms. Meriyu because it focused on the visibility 

of the petitioner’s religious practices and threats of violence 

that were particular to Christians, not necessarily other minorities. The Third Circuit pointed to Mr. Liem’s role as a 

deacon to conclude that “the increase in religious intolerance 

in Indonesia reflected in the record might be uniquely problematic for Liem, since he is a minister in his community, 

thus practicing his Christian faith publicly.” Id. at 400 (quotation marks omitted). Further, Mr. Liem introduced substantially more evidence than Ms. Meriyu: He submitted approximately 190 pages of evidence. Id. at 391 n.4. 

Ms. Meriyu next invokes Sihotang v. Sessions, 900 F.3d 46, 

53 (1st Cir. 2018), in which the First Circuit remanded the 

case for consideration of evidence of an “especially sharp 

increase in governmental and private persecution of IndoneCase: 19-1892 Document: 27 Filed: 02/26/2020 Pages: 12
No. 19-1892 11

sian Christians between 2014 and 2017.” Sihotang, however, 

is distinguishable because it involved evangelical Christians, 

“for whom public proselytizing is a religious obligation.” Id. 

at 50. Sihotang turned on evidence of detailed descriptions of 

violence towards Christians, including instances in which 

the local government supported extremists in blocking 

Christians from attending Easter Mass and clergymen were 

stabbed in “broad daylight.” Id. at 51. 

Ms. Meriyu’s third example is Salim v. Lynch, 831 F.3d 

1133 (9th Cir. 2016), in which the Ninth Circuit remanded 

the case for consideration of evidence that Islamic extremist 

movements had targeted Indonesian Christians and that current conditions had changed from conditions at the time of 

the petitioner’s previous hearing. Salim is distinguishable, 

however, because the Ninth Circuit explicitly restricted its 

discussion to Indonesian Christians when determining that 

Mr. Salim’s conversion from Buddhism to Catholicism 

placed him at risk for persecution he would not have faced 

had he not converted. Id. at 1137–38. In the view of the Ninth 

Circuit, Mr. Salim—as a Christian—belonged to “the group 

whose religious freedoms have been violated the most.” Id.

at 1138 (internal quotation marks omitted). Mr. Salim also 

submitted evidence that changed circumstances would affect 

him personally, including a letter from his sister describing 

“the growing threat of violence and lack of protection from 

local police.” Id. 

Ms. Meriyu’s circumstances more closely resemble those 

in Yahya v. Sessions, 889 F.3d 392 (7th Cir. 2018), where we affirmed a determination by the Board that conditions had not 

materially changed for moderate Muslims. Our reasoning in 

Yahya closely tracks the Board’s orders in this case. There, as 

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12 No. 19-1892 

here, the applicant presented sparse evidence of violence 

and “almost no evidence” about the threat the applicant 

would have faced in 2003, at the time of Mr. Yahya’s original 

proceedings. Id. at 396. Just as Mr. Yahya’s evidence of mistreatment of Christians did not “bear directly on the potential harm he would face on return,” id., Ms. Meriyu’s evidence of Ahok’s conviction—as the Board determined—did 

not suggest any prospect of persecution if she returned to 

Indonesia. 

Conclusion 

Because the Board permissibly concluded that 

Ms. Meriyu did not demonstrate that conditions in Indonesia had materially changed between 2003 and 2017, the 

Board did not abuse its discretion in denying her petition to 

reopen removal proceedings. Accordingly, we deny the petition for review. 

 PETITION DENIED 

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