Opinion ID: 2975764
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jurisdiction to Review the Asylum Application

Text: Because the BIA adopted the IJ’s decision, we review the IJ’s decision directly. Yu v. Ashcroft, 364 F.3d 700, 702 (6th Cir. 2004). In denying Sall’s application for asylum, the IJ stated two independent reasons for denying the petition. The first was that he found Sall to be not credible, which will be addressed below. In addition, the IJ found that Sall had not shown that his petition was timely, meaning that Sall failed to provide clear and convincing evidence that his asylum application was filed within one year of his arrival in the United States, as required by 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(B). In this case, the IJ noted that there was no entry in the Non-Immigrant Information System (“NIIS”) for a person entering the United States in the month of July 2003 with the name, or a name similar to, the one that Sall provided. Sall produced a document purportedly from the Mauritanian government certifying that Sall was released from a jail sentence on May 2, 2003, which if credited would establish that he was still in Mauritania at that time and had not yet entered the United States. The IJ found Sall’s documents “to be questionable,” noting that “documents from Mauritania are readily counterfeited and [that he] see[s] counterfeit Mauritania documents all the time.” He stated that Sall’s Mauritanian identification was clearly a counterfeit document, but that he would not make -3- No. 06-3952 Sall v. Gonzales a finding that it was false without forensic testing, which he declined to do because it would have taken at least eighteen months. The Government cites Castellano-Chacon v. INS, 341 F.3d 533, 542-44 (6th Cir. 2003) as support for its proposition that this Court lacks jurisdiction to review a denial of asylum based on a finding that a petition was untimely. However, this Court in Almuhtaseb v. Gonzalez, 453 F.3d 743 (6th Cir. 2006), modified “the holding of Castellano-Chacon to bar our review of asylum applications denied for untimeliness only when the appeal seeks review of discretionary or factual questions, but not when the appeal seeks review of constitutional claims or matters of statutory construction.” Id. at 748. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(B) requires an asylum applicant to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that his application was filed within a year of arrival in the United States. Due process requires that an alien in a deportation proceeding be afforded a full and fair hearing, although the IJ is entitled to broad discretion in conducting that hearing. Castellano-Chacon, 341 F.3d at 55253. Sall argues that the IJ violated his due process rights when the IJ declined to submit Sall’s documents to forensic testing, thus depriving Sall of that method of proving his arrival date. However, Sall could have provided other corroborating evidence supporting his arrival date, including plane tickets, receipts, a record of entry into the United States, or other evidence that he was still in Mauritania or Senegal during the time period he claimed. As the IJ noted in his order, the only evidence that Sall provided to support the Mauritanian government documents was his testimony, which proved to include false information about the name provided upon entry, and the testimony of his roommate which did not provide corroboration of his date of arrival. -4- No. 06-3952 Sall v. Gonzales Because Sall was not deprived of an opportunity to provide evidence that his application was timely, it was not a due process violation for the IJ to decline to submit the documents to forensic testing for authentication. To the extent that Sall complains of the factual findings of the IJ, those claims are not reviewable by this court. Almuhtaseb, 453 F.3d at 748.