Opinion ID: 1354339
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The application of disfavored group analysis to withholding claims

Text: Until today, we have applied the disfavored group approach only to asylum claims. In Sael, we expressly reserved the question whether this mode of analysis is applicable in the context of withholding of removal claims as well. Sael, 386 F.3d at 930 n. 10. Wakkary's case presents that question squarely. When it dismissed Wakkary's appeal, the BIA held that Sael prescribes a reduced burden of proof for asylum seekers belonging to disfavored groups, which it considered to be incompatible with the higher, and less elastic, clear probability standard required for withholding of removal. In so ruling, the BIA misunderstood Sael 's holding. Disfavored group analysis does not prescribe a lower-than-usual burden of proof for the asylum claims of members of certain judicially-anointed groups. An individual seeking asylum must always show that he faces at least a ten percent chance of future persecution, whether he attempts to meet his burden by showing a pattern or practice or by showing a likelihood that he will be individually singled out. See Al-Harbi, 242 F.3d at 888. We have never held, in Sael, Kotasz, or elsewhere, that a member of a disfavored group must show only, say, a five or nine percent likelihood of persecution to be eligible for asylum. Instead, the lesser or comparatively low burden to which we averted in Kotasz, 31 F.3d at 854, and Sael, 386 F.3d at 927, refers not to a lower ultimate standard, but to the lower proportion of specifically individualized evidence of risk, counterbalanced by a greater showing of group targeting, that an applicant must adduce to meet that ultimate standard under the regulations' individually singled out rubric. The more evidence of group targeting an asylum applicant proffers, the less evidence of individually specific evidence he needs to reach that ten percent. In other words, the disfavored group concept simply describes the basic evidentiary proposition that an asylum applicant's membership in a group whose members are shown to have been widely targeted for discrimination, a substantial number of whom are shown to have been persecuted, is relevant evidence in assessing whether his fear of being personally targeted for persecution in the future rises to the requisite level of objective reasonableness. With this clarification, it should be apparent that our disfavored group cases do not invent a judicially created alternative to the statutory and regulatory scheme, Kho v. Keisler, 505 F.3d 50, 55 (1st Cir. 2007), or a lower threshold of proof, Firmansjah v. Gonzales, 424 F.3d 598, 607 n. 6 (7th Cir.2005), as some other circuits have mistakenly assumed. See also Lie, 396 F.3d at 538 n. 4. Rather, our cases merely outline a method for weighing indicators of future individual risk, a method consistent with that employed in other circuits. The First Circuit, for example, recognized that in evaluating each claim on its facts, it may be that evidence short of a pattern or practice will enhance an individualized showing of likelihood of a future threat to an applicant's life or freedom. Kho, 505 F.3d at 55. Although the First Circuit regarded that possibility as a different matter from our disfavored group approach, in fact that fairly obvious evidentiary point is the essence of our disfavored group cases. In other words, when asking how likely it is that an individual applicant will be singled out in the future on the basis of his group membership, it is indisputably relevant (though of course not dispositive) how others in his group are treated. For, as the Fourth Circuit explained, an applicant will typically demonstrate some combination of [individual risk and group risk] to establish a well-founded fear of persecution. The more egregious the showing of group persecution[,] the less evidence of individualized persecution must be adduced. Conversely, a stronger showing of individual targeting will be necessary where the underlying basis for the applicant's fear is membership in a diffuse class against whom actual persecution is hap-hazard and rare. Chen v. INS, 195 F.3d 198, 203-04 (4th Cir.1999) (internal alterations omitted) (quoting Kotasz, 31 F.3d at 853); see also Makonnen v. INS, 44 F.3d 1378, 1383 (8th Cir.1995). We see no reason why this evidentiary proposition should be applicable to asylum claims but not to withholding claims. The BIA correctly noted that asylum and withholding of removal have different quantitative standards of prooften percent for asylum, and more likely than not for withholding. See 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(b)(1)(iii); Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. at 449, 107 S.Ct. 1207; Lata v. INS, 204 F.3d 1241, 1244 (9th Cir.2000). To repeat, disfavored group analysis does not alter the quantitative standard of proof. Rather, it determines what sorts of evidence can be used to meet that standard, and, quite generally, in what proportions. What matters is that both asylum and withholding have the same qualitative criteria for eligibility, so the same sorts of evidence are relevant to determining whether an applicant's fear is objectively reasonable. Under the regulations, eligibility for both forms of relief depend upon the likelihood that the applicant will be persecuted in his home country on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(2)(i)(A) (asylum); id. § 1208.16(b) (withholding). And 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(b)(2), governing withholding, provides in substantially identical language to 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(2)(iii) (governing asylum) that a withholding applicant may demonstrate that his fear of future persecution rises to the requisite level of objective reasonableness either by showing a pattern or practice of persecution, or by showing that he will be singled out individually. Id. § 1208.16(b)(2). In sum, if an applicant's membership in a disfavored group is relevant to the objective reasonableness of his future fear in the asylum context, we see no reason, either in logic or in the statutory and regulatory design, why membership in a disfavored group should not similarly be relevant to assessing the likelihood of individual targeting in the withholding context. We hold that it is.