Opinion ID: 2799383
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prior Removal Proceedings

Text: Faustov was born in the western portion of Ukraine in 1976. In the summer of 1998, he was admitted to the United States for one year as a nonimmigrant visitor. Nevertheless, he has remained in this country. While here, he has been convicted of: (1) driving under the influence of alcohol or a controlled substance; (2) causing an accident involving damage to an attended vehicle; and (3) possession of a controlled substance. On November 19, 2009, the Department of Homeland Security through its office of 3 Immigration and Customs Enforcement, issued a notice to appear charging that Faustov was removable under § 237(a)(1)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. See 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(B) (2006). Faustov responded with what he characterizes as a defensive application for asylum. He first alleged that he would be targeted by Ukraine’s “mafia” for extortion due to the misperception that he had acquired wealth in the United States. He also claimed he would be unable to obtain proper treatment for his diabetes because certain types of insulin available in this country are not available in Ukraine. He did not identify his religion in his application, but at a hearing on January 17, 2012, he testified that he was an Orthodox Christian. In 2012, an immigration judge denied Faustov’s application but granted him the right of voluntary departure. Faustov appealed this decision but the BIA dismissed his appeal, though it remanded the case to the immigration judge to adjust the time period provided for voluntary departure. On October 16, 2013, we denied Faustov’s petition for review of the BIA’s decision. Faustov v. Att’y Gen., 538 F. App’x 166 (3d Cir. 2013). On October 29, 2013, Faustov filed a motion to reopen due to the alleged ineffective assistance that his attorney provided in prosecuting his application for asylum. The BIA denied the motion as untimely and concluded that Faustov had not demonstrated any basis for equitable tolling of the time to seek reopening of the BIA’s decision or for ineffective assistance of counsel. Faustov did not seek review of the BIA’s order. B. Faustov’s Motion to Reopen Based on Practice of Judaism and Political Opinions 4 On May 19, 2014, Faustov filed another motion to reopen his removal proceedings seeking asylum, withholding of his removal, and CAT protection. He presented political and religious claims unrelated to his past contentions, alleging that he feared future persecution and torture because of his religion and his political opinion. Faustov supported this second reopening motion with: (1) an application for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection; (2) a written statement; (3) the United States Department of State Ukraine Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2013 (“2013 Country Report”); and (4) a variety of news articles and columns regarding events in Ukraine in 2014. In his motion, Faustov asserted that he feared persecution on account of his political opinions and practice of Judaism. He explained that the Russian occupiers of Ukraine would harm him because he is Ukrainian and that Ukrainian “ultra-nationalists” would harm him because they would think he was a Russian infiltrator. A.R. at 70. According to Faustov, Ukrainians would consider him a Russian infiltrator because of his absence from Ukraine, knowledge of the Russian language, and unfamiliarity with life in modern day Ukraine. Faustov claimed that although he was “neither a part of the Ukrainian nationalist movement [n]or the pro-Russian movement,” and, accordingly, was not political, he would face backlash in Ukraine for an imputed political viewpoint. Id. at 25. Faustov did not indicate that he had the intent to express any political opinion, but his counsel represented that Faustov opposed the “actual and de facto control of proRussian demonstrators, terrorists, Russian military and Russian intelligence personnel” 5 and that, if questioned, Faustov would state his support of Ukrainian nationalism. Id. at 45. In something of a contradiction, however, the motion later proffered that if Faustov fell “into the hands of the Russians,” he would deny Ukrainian ethnicity. Id. at 47. Faustov further asserted that he feared harm in Ukraine because of his Jewish practices. He alleged that his father was Jewish but had been unable to practice his faith openly in Ukraine.1 Faustov expressed his fear of death or abuse because Ukrainians in the western part of the country had anti-Semitic feelings. Id. at 70. Yet he supported this contention with articles describing incidents in eastern Ukraine, including one in which masked individuals distributed anti-Semitic leaflets outside of a synagogue in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk. Other articles described Molotov cocktails being thrown at synagogues in eastern Ukraine and described anti-Semitic incidents in Zaporizhia, a town in eastern Ukraine, and Nikolayev, “a Black Sea port city . . . in southeastern Ukraine.” Id. at 145, 146. Faustov argued that these occurrences, together with the alleged “rise” of Ukrainian nationalists who sympathized with the philosophies of Stepan Bandera, an anti-Semitic World War II figure, create “an atmosphere of persecution for Jews.” Id. at 33-34.2 1 He previously had testified that his father was Christian. 2 Faustov did not reconcile his claim of his own Jewish observance with his prior testimony of being an Orthodox Christian: