United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 99-3813

___________

Manuel A. Mendez-Fuentes, *

*

Petitioner, *

*

v. * Petition for Review of an

* Order of the Immigration

Immigration and Naturalization * and Naturalization Service.

Service, *

* [UNPUBLISHED]

Respondent. *

 Submitted: October 4, 2000

 Filed: October 13, 2000

___________

Before McMILLIAN, BOWMAN, and MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit

Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

El Salvadoran citizen Manuel A. Mendez-Fuentes petitions for review of an

order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), which dismissed his appeal from an

Immigration Judge’s (IJ’s) denial of his request for asylum and withholding of

deportation. Specifically, Mr. Mendez-Fuentes challenges the BIA’s finding regarding

his credibility, the weight given to letters he submitted in support of his request, and the

BIA’s allegedly undue reliance on a State Department country report and profile of

asylum claims and country conditions in El Salvador.
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Upon careful review of the record and the parties’ briefs, we conclude that

reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence in the record as a whole supports the

BIA’s determinations that Mr. Mendez-Fuentes failed to establish past persecution or

an objectively reasonable fear of future persecution on account of one of the statutorily

recognized factors. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A) (refugee is alien unwilling to return

to home country “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”); Feleke v. INS, 118 F.3d 594, 597-98 (8th Cir. 1997) (standard of

review; well-founded fear must be subjectively genuine and objectively reasonable).

We agree with the BIA that Mr. Mendez-Fuentes’s uncorroborated testimony

failed to establish he was a victim of past persecution, because, as the BIA explained,

the record reveals reasons to find his credibility weak. Mr. Mendez-Fuentes contended

that soldiers suspected he was harboring his brother-in-law, Jamie Quintanilla, who in

turn the soldiers suspected of printing anti-government propaganda. The BIA noted,

however, that it was unlikely that the soldiers repeatedly searched Mr. MendezFuentes’s home--in which Mr. Quintanilla, along with his wife and children, were

living--and never discovered evidence of the guests’ residence, as Mr. Mendez-Fuentes

testified. It was also reasonable for the BIA to be skeptical of Mr. Mendez-Fuentes’s

testimony that the military had imputed an anti-government political opinion to him

based on Mr. Quintanilla’s activities, given that Mr. Quintanilla endured death threats

to himself and his family from anti-government forces over a period of years rather than

publish anti-government propaganda. Cf. Ghasemimehr v. INS, 7 F.3d 1389, 1391 (8th

Cir. 1993) (per curiam) (deferring to finding that alien’s testimony was not credible,

because finding was supported by specific, cogent reason for disbelief). Although Mr.

Mendez-Fuentes produced letters from persons in El Salvador to support his contention

that the military was still looking for him because of an imputed adverse political

opinion, the letters were not sufficiently specific, and one letter (impossibly) described

an event that supposedly occurred two months after the date of the letter. 
1The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996

(IIRIRA), Pub. L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009 (Sept. 30, 1996), amended by Act of

Oct. 11, 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-302, 110 Stat. 3656, repealed 8 U.S.C. § 1105a (1994)

and replaced it with a new judicial review provision codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1252. See

IIRIRA § 306. As the new provision does not apply to deportation proceedings that

commenced before April 1, 1997, this court continues to have jurisdiction under 8

U.S.C. § 1105a. See IIRIRA § 309(c).

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We also agree with the BIA that Mr. Mendez-Fuentes failed to show his fear of

future persecution was objectively reasonable: he voluntarily returned to El Salvador

after allegedly leaving to escape persecution, and was able to obtain a passport and

visa; he presented no evidence that his family remaining in El Salvador has been

harmed since he left; and the State Department and other reports in the record (which

the BIA was entitled to consider) indicate political violence in El Salvador has subsided

substantially since the 1992 peace accords. See Manivong v. INS, 164 F.3d 432, 433

(8th Cir. 1999) (affirming partly because alien’s family remained in home country

without incident); Cigaran v. Heston, 159 F.3d 355, 358 (8th Cir. 1998) (per curiam)

(relying on lack of confirmed cases of politically motivated killings or forced

disappearances in El Salvador, as noted in State Department’s profile of asylum claims

and country conditions, to conclude that alien’s fear of future persecution on political

grounds was unreasonable); Safaie v. INS, 25 F.3d 636, 640 (8th Cir. 1994)

(petitioner’s ability to get visa to leave home country and lack of harm to herself or her

family undercut well-founded-fear claim).

Because substantial evidence supports the denial of asylum, we also affirm the

BIA’s denial of withholding of deportation. See Ghasemimehr, 7 F.3d at 1391

(withholding standard is more stringent). Finally, we deny Mr. Mendez-Fuentes’s

alternative request for a stay of deportation.

Accordingly, we deny the petition.1
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A true copy.

Attest:

CLERK, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.