Opinion ID: 71026
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: CAT Framework

Text: Article 3 of the CAT provides: 1. No State Party shall expel, return (“refouler”) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. 2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.14 Under the CAT, Asres had the burden of proving that if he were removed to Eritrea, it is more likely than not that he would be tortured by, or with the consent or acquiescence of, public officials.15 This determination is one of fact in which the IJ must consider “all evidence relevant to the possibility of further torture.” 16 Additionally, a CAT claim is “separate from the claims for asylum and withholding of removal and should receive separate analytical attention.”17 14 United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, art. 3, Dec. 10, 1984, S. Treaty Doc. No. 100-20, 1465 U.N.T.S. 85, 113. 15 See 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c)(2). The applicable regulation defines “torture” as follows: [A]ny act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or her or a third person information or a confession, punishing him or her for an act he or she or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or her or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. Id. § 208.18(a)(1). 16 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c)(3) (providing a non-exhaustive list of relevant evidence); see Zhang v. Gonzales, 432 F.3d 339, 344 (5th Cir. 2005). 17 Efe v. Ashcroft, 293 F.3d 899, 906–07 (5th Cir. 2002); see Chen v. Gonzales, 470 F.3d 1131, 1139 (5th Cir. 2006) (explaining that CAT claims differ from asylum claims because a 6 Case: 08-60130 Document: 00511023342 Page: 7 Date Filed: 02/09/2010 No. 08-60130 Because each different type of claim for relief has different statutory requirements, a petitioner’s arguments in favor of CAT relief might not be factually related to his asserted grounds for relief under another claim. For this reason, an adverse credibility determination in the asylum context need not necessarily affect the disposition of a petitioner’s CAT claim.18 C. Application of the IJ’s Adverse Credibility Determination Asres contends that he deserted the Eritrean military and that, as a deserter, the government of Eritrea would torture him. He theorizes that the BIA and the IJ reached their contrary conclusions by impermissibly relying on the IJ’s adverse credibility determination, which Asres asserts was applicable only to his asylum and withholding of removal claims (based on past persecution), not his claimed deserter status on which his CAT claim was based (for probability of future torture). Even though Asres challenges the influence that the adverse credibility determination had on his CAT claim, he does not actually challenge that determination. Our inquiry begins — and ends — with the dispositive question whether substantial evidence supports the conclusion that Asres failed to establish that he deserted the Eritrean military. (Of course, if there were evidence that Asres did not desert but that Eritrea nevertheless would consider him a deserter, that would alter our analysis.) Both the Seventh and Ninth Circuits have remanded CAT claims to the BIA when it relied on prior credibility determinations that were unrelated or CAT claim (1) need not be based on one of the five asylum grounds, (2) must prove torture, not simply persecution (or a well-founded fear of persecution), and (3) must prove likelihood of torture by “more likely than not,” a higher standard than “well-founded fear”); Efe, 293 F.3d at 906 (requiring that a petitioner’s successful withholding of removal claim show that it was “‘more likely than not’ that his life or freedom would be threatened by persecution on account of one of the five categories mentioned under asylum” (quoting 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(b)(1)). 18 See, e.g., Mansour v. INS, 230 F.3d 902, 908 (7th Cir. 2000). 7 Case: 08-60130 Document: 00511023342 Page: 8 Date Filed: 02/09/2010 No. 08-60130 insignificant to the CAT claims.19 In Mansour, the Seventh Circuit remanded a case to the BIA for further proceedings because the court was “not comfortable with allowing a negative credibility determination in the asylum context to wash over the torture claim; especially when the prior adverse credibility determination is not necessarily significant” to the CAT claim.20 As an Assyrian Christian, the petitioner in Mansour based his CAT claim on Iraq’s abuses of his ethnic and religious group, as documented by the State Department’s Country Report on Human Rights Practices (“Country Report”) for Iraq.21 In contrast, that petitioner’s asylum claim was “not centere[ed] . . . around his ethnic/religious background”; it instead related to alleged past abuses and his status as a military deserter.22 Because the two claims “differ[ed] enough in nature,” each warranted individual treatment and the credibility determination in the asylum context could not be relied on to defeat the CAT claim.23 Like the Seventh Circuit before it, the Ninth Circuit in Kamalthas remanded a petitioner’s analytically independent CAT claim to the BIA for further proceedings.24 In that case, the Sri Lankan petitioner claimed that as a Tamil male, he would be tortured in violation of the CAT on his repatriation.25 The BIA previously had rejected the petitioner’s asylum claim, determining that his account of past persecution lacked credibility.26 The Kamalthas court rejected 19 See Kamalthas v. INS, 251 F.3d 1279 (9th Cir. 2001); Mansour, 230 F.3d 902. 20 230 F.3d at 908. 21 Id. 22 Id. at 905–06, 909. 23 Id. at 909. 24 251 F.3d at 1284. 25 Id. at 1280. 26 Id. 8 Case: 08-60130 Document: 00511023342 Page: 9 Date Filed: 02/09/2010 No. 08-60130 the BIA’s overreliance on its prior adverse credibility determination and cautioned that the finding was not necessarily determinative of the CAT claim.27 In vacating and remanding to the BIA for further proceedings, the court recognized evidence that corroborated the petitioner’s claim of the widespread torture of Tamil males.28 In Efe v. Ashcroft, we described Mansour and Kamalthas as decisions in which the courts “remanded cases for further consideration of CAT claims due to overreliance on an adverse credibility ruling.” 29 Yet, in our Efe decision, we held that Mansour and Kamalthas were inapplicable when the “credibility assessment . . . goes directly to the issue” of torture vel non.30 The Efe petitioner contended that the Nigerian government would torture him because he had killed a police officer during a political demonstration.31 The IJ determined that the petitioner lacked credibility about, inter alia, his claimed involvement in the demonstration and whether he had killed the officer.32 In denying relief under the CAT, we concluded that Mansour and Kamalthas were distinguishable as cases that addressed claims of “a general situation of torture among men of a certain ethnic or religious background shared by the alien.” 33 The Efe petitioner 27 Id. at 1284. 28 Id. 29 293 F.3d 899, 907 (5th Cir. 2002). 30 Id. at 907–08. 31 Id. at 901. 32 Id. at 902. 33 Id. at 907 (emphasis added). 9 Case: 08-60130 Document: 00511023342 Page: 10 Date Filed: 02/09/2010 No. 08-60130 made no such claim, instead alleging that he would be arrested and tortured for his acts.34 Efe controls the instant case. Asres’s CAT claim depended on the IJ’s believing that Asres had deserted the Eritrean military. Similarly, the Efe petitioner’s CAT claim depended on the IJ’s believing that the petitioner would be tortured for a specific act, his murder of a police officer.35 In contrast, the Mansour and Kamalthas petitioners’ CAT claims depended on each petitioner’s immutable characteristics — either being an Assyrian Christian or a Tamil male — which were not disputed.36 As in Efe, the IJ’s determination that Asres lacked credibility was relevant to his CAT claim, and the IJ and the BIA did not err in considering it.37 When Asres’s testimony is disregarded for lack of credibility, the only independent evidence supporting his claims were the photographs purporting to show him in uniform. The IJ determined, however, that it was “not clear” whether the individual in the photographs was in fact Asres. The IJ also stated that even if Asres was the individual depicted in the photos, they would show only that he was once in the military, not necessarily that he deserted. The rejection of his only proffered evidence, along with the adverse credibility determination, is sufficient to deny Asres’s petition for review on the basis that the evidence is not so compelling that no reasonable fact-finder could rule in favor of the Attorney 34 Id. at 907–08. 35 Id. 36 Kamalthas v. INS, 251 F.3d 1279, 1283 (9th Cir. 2001); Mansour, 230 F.3d at 908. 37 Nor do we agree with Asres that the IJ, and subsequently the BIA, conflated his asylum and CAT claims. Review of the IJ’s decision confirms that he did not believe Asres was credible, generally or specifically as to desertion. And, the BIA clearly understood Asres’s argument, which it described as a claim “that he is a deserter . . . and for this reason he faces a probability of suffering future torture at the hands of Eritrean officials in the event of his return.” 10 Case: 08-60130 Document: 00511023342 Page: 11 Date Filed: 02/09/2010 No. 08-60130 General.38 And, because Asres failed to establish that he deserted the Eritrean military, we do not reach the question whether Eritrean officials would torture a deserter following his repatriation. We pause briefly, however, to entertain Asres’s claim that his age alone — 34 years old — entitles him to relief. According to the Amnesty International Report on Eritrea for 2005, “[n]ational service, compulsory for all men and women aged between 18 and 40[,] continued to be extended indefinitely.” 39 In the Attorney General’s view, the 18to-40-year range constitutes 22 years of eligibility, not mandatory service. Asres would have us (1) hold that any Eritrean between the ages of 18 and 40 who is not currently serving in the military is eligible for relief under the CAT as a deserter (assuming that Eritrea in fact tortures its deserters), and (2) ignore any possibility for exceptions to the rule of 22 consecutive years of service, something that is at best unlikely, or in the Attorney General’s words, “absurd, for it would mean that [the] majority of the able-bodied persons and almost all women of childbearing age would be serving in the military.” In his briefing to us, Asres appears to recognize that “not every Eritrean man falling in that age range presently serves in the military.” Yet, he contends that his age nevertheless proves his case. Given our deferential standard of review — substantial evidence — Asres’s argument on this point is unpersuasive. Once we 38 If presented with different facts, we might demand an individual credibility determination on CAT-specific issues. See Singh v. Ashcroft, 398 F.3d 396, 404–06 (6th Cir. 2005) (requiring such specificity). Because Asres’s putative bases for relief were all intertwined such that the IJ’s credibility determination was applicable to his CAT claim, we demand no such specificity. See Alemu v. Gonzales, 403 F.3d 572, 576 (8th Cir. 2005) (“[S]eparate analysis is required only when there is evidence that an alien might be tortured for reasons unrelated to her claims for asylum and withholding of removal.”). 39 Providing different information than Amnesty International, the Country Report for Eritrea states that all men between 18 and 45 years old and women between 18 and 27 years old must “participate in the national service program, which included military training and civilian work programs. Some citizens reported enlistment in the national service for many years with no prospective end date.” Both reports are part of the record on appeal. 11 Case: 08-60130 Document: 00511023342 Page: 12 Date Filed: 02/09/2010 No. 08-60130 acknowledge that at least some Eritreans in Asres’s age group are not in the military and did not desert, without additional evidence from Asres, we conclude that the evidence does not compel holding that any reasonable fact-finder would have ruled in his favor on the basis of his age.