Opinion ID: 164574
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Challenges to IJ’s Decision on the Merits

Text: Finally, Petitioner challenges the IJ’s adverse determination of his asylum, restriction-on-removal, and Convention against Torture claims. He has three bases for this challenge.
Petitioner first argues that in ruling on his asylum claim, the IJ erred in considering only whether he had a well-founded fear of future persecution. -9- Instead, he seems to argue, the IJ should have based his decision on the past persecution Petitioner allegedly suffered in Pakistan. Quoting from the United Nations Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status (UN Handbook), Petitioner asserts that “a person who . . . has suffered under atrocious forms of persecution should not be expected to repatriate[.]” Aplt. Br. at 3. The UN Handbook is not binding on this court. INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U.S. 415, 427 (1999). Our case law does, however, recognize that under the INA an asylum applicant can establish refugee status by showing he “has suffered past persecution, which gives rise to a [rebuttable] presumption [of] . . . a wellfounded fear of future persecution,” Krastev, 292 F.3d at 1270, or has suffered “past persecution so severe as to demonstrate compelling reasons for being unwilling or unable to return” to his country of nationality, id. at 1271 (internal quotation marks omitted). Contrary to Petitioner’s assertion, the IJ understood this to be the law, and applied it to his case. See Oral Decision at 1 (“If [Petitioner] can show that he was persecuted in the past . . . he is entitled to asylum.”); id. at 7–9 (weighing evidence of past persecution). Petitioner’s argument on this point therefore has no merit. (We note that Petitioner does not assert that the IJ’s determination of his past-persecution claim fails substantialevidence review. As a result, we need not examine that matter.) -10-
Petitioner next argues that the IJ’s failure to take his brother’s successful asylum application into consideration meant that he “incorrectly decide[d] the facts[.]” Aplt. Br. at 3. We disagree. The IJ accepted the Petitioner’s assertion that his brother had been granted asylum based on his political opinion. But the IJ found this grant inapplicable to Petitioner’s claim. The IJ observed that because Petitioner’s claim was “not based on social group or religion shared with his brother, . . . [t]he fact that his brother was granted [asylum] . . . [does not] compel[] that [Petitioner] receive the same treatment.” Oral Decision at 9. The political associations of family members can have a bearing on political-opinion-based asylum claims in certain circumstances. “A large number of imputed political opinion cases involve the applicant’s family’s political associations” because “a persecutor may presume that an individual who is closely identified with his family . . . shares the beliefs and opinions of other family members.” Deborah E. Anker, Law of Asylum in the United States 332 (3d ed. 1999). But Petitioner is not basing his claim on an imputed political opinion; rather, he asserts that his own political activities engendered the past persecution that he alleges took place. Questioning at the June 8, 1999, hearing, showed that Petitioner’s brother’s claim was based on specific incidents of persecution that he -11- had suffered at the hands of the PPP’s rival party. Thus, as the IJ correctly reasoned, the success of Petitioner’s brother’s claim—based on those incidents—had no bearing on Petitioner’s own claim—based on another set of alleged incidents. c. Restriction-on-Removal and Convention against Torture Claims Third, Petitioner contends that the IJ “failed to consider [restriction on] removal or adequately explore Article 3 of the [CAT].” Aplt. Br. at 3. This claim also flies in the face of the IJ’s actual decision. The IJ correctly laid out the standards for both of these claims at the outset of his decision, and explicitly turned down each at the end. With respect to the restriction-on-removal claim, because Petitioner failed to establish the objective component of a well-founded fear of persecution for the purpose of his asylum claim, he necessarily failed to establish entitlement to restriction on removal. See Batalova, 355 F.3d at 1255; Yuk, 355 F.3d at 1236 (IJ correctly denied restriction on removal when “petitioners failed to meet the lower standard of showing entitlement to asylum”). Once the IJ rejected Petitioner’s asylum claim, he need not have looked into the restriction-on-removal claim further. As for Petitioner’s Convention against Torture claim, the IJ correctly noted that “for that [claim] he must show that it is more likely than not that he would be -12- tortured by a government agent. It need not be based on any of the reasons in the statute.” Oral Decision at 2. See Sviridov, 358 F.3d at 724 n.2; 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c); 8 C.F.R. § 208.18(a)(1). The IJ denied Petitioner’s Convention against Torture claim on two grounds: (1) the IJ did not credit Petitioner’s testimony on his past experiences, and (2) “his fear of torture apparently was at the [hands of] the local group [from whom] he had suffered previously, and not at the hands of a government agent.” Oral Decision at 9. Because the IJ gave specific, cogent reasons for discrediting Petitioner’s testimony, id. at 7–8, we uphold his credibility determination. See Sviridov, 358 F.3d at 727. Without Petitioner’s testimony, there is insufficient evidence to show that he is entitled to relief under the Convention. We uphold the IJ’s denial of Petitioner’s Convention against Torture claim on that basis, so we need not reach the second basis for the decision.