Opinion ID: 1263221
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Remand for hearing on persecution as failed asylum-seeker

Text: Sundararajan next argues that the Board erred in declining to remand the case to the IJ with directions to consider the possibility that Sundararajan may face persecution as a failed asylum seeker. In the statement that Sundararajan attached to his I-589 application for asylum and other relief, he stated that the Sri Lankan authorities typically arrest at the airport anyone returned to the country involuntarily, and that Tamil refugees have often disappeared while in detention at the airport. A.R. 398. He made a similar assertion in his testimony. A.R. 177. At the conclusion of the evidentiary hearing before the Immigration Judge, Sundararajan's attorney argued in closing that he had an independent claim for relief as a failed asylum-seeker. A.R. 221-23. But the IJ never explicitly addressed this possibility in his decision. For its part, the Board in a footnote indicated that it was unnecessary for the IJ to do so given the judge's adverse evaluation of Sundararajan's credibility. A.R. 5 n. 1. Sundararajan faults that reasoning as untenable, given that the IJ's credibility determination related to his past experiences in Sri Lanka, which have nothing to do with the possibility that he might be persecuted for having unsuccessfully sought asylum in the United States. Given the lack of record evidence supporting this claim, however, Sundararajan was not entitled to a hearing. The only evidence in the record supporting the notion that Sundararajan might face persecution as a failed asylum seeker is his own statement in support of his asylum application and his testimony at the hearing. This evidence is itself minimal, and Sundararajan never articulated the basis for his knowledge that failed asylum seekers face arrest and abuse upon their return to Sri Lanka. Given that the IJ did not credit him as a witness, there was effectively no evidence to support this claim. And although Sundararajan points out that the Second Circuit ordered a hearing on a similar claim in Ramsameachire v. Ashcroft, 357 F.3d 169, 184-85 (2d Cir.2004), notwithstanding the IJ's adverse credibility determination, in that case the alien had proffered evidence sufficient to support the claim, see id. at 184. Sundararajan failed to offer sufficient evidence here.