Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

No. 14-1258 

FRUTO EXAVIER, 

Petitioner, 

v. 

LORETTA E. LYNCH, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL,*

Respondent. 

PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE 

BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS 

Before 

Lynch, Selya, and Barron, 

Circuit Judges. 

Stephen M. Born, and Mills and Born, LLP, on brief for 

petitioner. 

Richard Zanfardino, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration 

Litigation, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Terri J. 

Scadron, Assistant Director, and Joyce R. Branda, Acting Assistant 

Attorney General, Civil Division, on brief for respondent. 

August 5, 2015 

 * Pursuant to Fed. R. App. P. 43(c)(2), Attorney General 

Loretta E. Lynch has been substituted for former Attorney General 

Eric H. Holder, Jr. as the respondent. 
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BARRON, Circuit Judge. Petitioner Fruto Exavier, a 

native and citizen of Haiti, seeks review of the denial of his 

asylum application. The Immigration Judge (IJ), in a decision 

affirmed by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), denied 

Exavier's applications for asylum, 8 U.S.C. § 1158, for withholding 

of removal, id. § 1231(b)(3), and for protection under the 

Convention Against Torture. Finding substantial evidence supports 

the decision of the BIA, we deny the petition for review. 

I. 

To obtain relief, an asylum applicant must show that he 

is outside his country of nationality and cannot or will not return 

to his country of nationality "because of persecution or a wellfounded 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); id. § 1158(b)(1). 

In the present case, the BIA accepted for purposes of 

its analysis that Exavier had suffered past persecution, which 

warrants a rebuttable presumption that an asylum applicant has a 

well-founded fear of future persecution.1 See 8 C.F.R. 

§ 1208.13(b)(1); Hernandez-Barrera v. Ashcroft, 373 F.3d 9, 21 

(1st Cir. 2004). That presumption can be rebutted, however, if 

 1 Like the BIA, we assume for the purposes of this appeal that 

Exavier is not barred from pursuing asylum due to firm 

resettlement. 
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the government shows, by a preponderance of the evidence, "that 

conditions in the country of the applicant's nationality have 

changed 'such that the applicant no longer has a well-founded fear 

of persecution.'" Yatskin v. I.N.S., 255 F.3d 5, 9 (1st Cir. 2001) 

(quoting 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(1)(i)(A)). And substantial evidence 

supports the BIA's ruling that conditions in Haiti have changed. 

See Laurent v. Ashcroft, 359 F.3d 59, 64 (1st Cir. 2004) ("[T]he 

BIA's findings of fact [must] be upheld 'unless any reasonable 

adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.'" 

(quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B))). 

As Exavier conceded before the IJ, the Duvalier 

government and the Ton Ton Macoutes, the parties Exavier described 

as responsible for his persecution over thirty years ago, are no 

longer in power. The government also introduced a 2010 Department 

of State Human Rights report to prove Haiti's current country 

conditions. See Uruci v. Holder, 558 F.3d 14, 21 (1st Cir. 2009). 

The report explains that the country is now a constitutional 

republic, with a multiparty political system based on presidential 

and legislative elections. According to the report, in 2010 "[t]he 

[current] government or its agents did not commit any known 

politically motivated killings," and there were "no reports of 

political prisoners or detainees" and "no reports of politically 

motivated disappearances by the government agents." 
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Exavier does argue in response that "members of his 

political party" -- the Christian Democratic Party -- "continue to 

face persecution by those who [currently] hold political power in 

Haiti." But while Exavier testified that Sylvio Claude, the 

party's leader, was assassinated in 2011, Exavier did not testify 

as to who killed Sylvio Claude or why. And though Exavier also 

testified that another party supporter, Jean Marie Filo, had been 

arrested by the current regime, Exavier then testified that he was 

not sure if Filo was still imprisoned, and did not provide any 

information on why Filo was arrested. 

Thus, although Exavier argues that these incidents prove 

that political persecution in Haiti is ongoing, Exavier did not 

put forward any evidence before the IJ showing that the current 

government either participates in or sanctions violence on account 

of what he contends are his political beliefs. For that reason, 

we conclude that Exavier's testimony provided little basis to 

question the BIA and IJ's reasonable reliance on the changed 

conditions in Haiti in concluding that Exavier had not demonstrated 

that he currently has a well-founded fear of persecution based 

upon his political beliefs. 

The BIA's supportable conclusion that Exavier had not 

established a well-founded fear of persecution on his asylum claim 

also determines the outcome of his claims for withholding of 

removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). An 
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asylum applicant proves that he has a well-founded fear of 

persecution on account of a protected ground by showing there is 

a "reasonable possibility" of persecution were he to return to his 

home country. An applicant for withholding of removal must make 

the more demanding showing that it is more likely than not that 

such persecution would occur, see Segran v. Mukasey, 511 F.3d 1, 

5-7 (1st Cir. 2007), and for the CAT claim, must show that it is 

more likely than not that he would be tortured upon return to his 

country, see Settenda v. Ashcroft, 377 F.3d 89, 94 (1st Cir. 2004). 

Thus, because "the BIA's rejection of [Exavier's] asylum claim 

withstands review," so does its rejection of Exavier's other 

claims. Laurent, 359 F.3d at 61 n.1. 

II. 

For these reasons, the petition for review is denied.