Opinion ID: 77748
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Montoya's Asylum Application

Text: To be eligible for asylum, an applicant bears the burden of proving that he is a refugee within the meaning of the INA. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(A); Chen v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 463 F.3d 1228, 1231 (11th Cir.2006) (per curiam). In relevant part, the INA defines a refugee as any person who is outside any country of such person's nationality . . . and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). Thus, an applicant can prove refugee status by presenting specific and credible evidence of either past persecution or fear of future persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Scheerer, 445 F.3d at 1315. To establish asylum based on past persecution, the applicant must prove (1) that she was persecuted, and (2) that the persecution was on account of a protected ground. Silva v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 448 F.3d 1229, 1236 (11th Cir.2006) (emphasis added). To establish eligibility for asylum based on a well-founded fear of future persecution, the applicant must prove (1) a subjectively genuine and objectively reasonable fear of persecution that is (2) on account of a protected ground. Id. (emphasis added, citations and quotation marks omitted). The subjective component is generally satisfied by the applicant's credible testimony that he or she genuinely fears persecution. In most cases, the objective prong can be fulfilled either by establishing past persecution or that he or she has a good reason to fear future persecution. Al Najjar, 257 F.3d at 1289 (citation and quotation marks omitted). A showing of past persecution creates a rebuttable presumption of a wellfounded fear of future persecution. Sepulveda v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 401 F.3d 1226, 1231 (11th Cir.2005) (per curiam). To overcome this presumption, the government bears the burden to show by a preponderance of the evidence either that conditions in the country have changed or that the applicant could avoid future persecution by relocating within the country if, under all the circumstances, it would be reasonable to expect the applicant to do so. 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(1)(i)(B); accord Arboleda v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 434 F.3d 1220, 1223 (11th Cir.2006) (per curiam). Although the INA does not define persecution, we have often repeated that persecution is an extreme concept, requiring more than a few isolated incidents of verbal harassment or intimidation, and that mere harassment does not amount to persecution. Sepulveda, 401 F.3d at 1231 (quotation marks and brackets omitted); accord Yi Feng Zheng v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 451 F.3d 1287, 1290 (11th Cir.2006) (per curiam); see also Gonzalez v. Reno, 212 F.3d 1338, 1355 (11th Cir.2000) (Not all exceptional treatment is persecution.). Both past persecution and future persecution must be on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(42)(A). One of those five grounds need not be the only motivation for the persecution. Rather, it is by now well-established in our case law that an applicant can establish eligibility for asylum as long as he can show that the persecution is,  at least in part, motivated by a protected ground. Rivera v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 487 F.3d 815, 821 (11th Cir. 2007) (emphasis added); see also Tan v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 446 F.3d 1369, 1375 (11th Cir.2006) (If the applicant can show that the persecution was, at least in part, motivated by a protected ground, then the applicant can establish eligibility for withholding of removal. (emphasis added)); [8] Sanchez v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 392 F.3d 434, 438 (11th Cir.2004) (per curiam) ([M]ixed-motive persecution may qualify if one of the motives is political. (citation omitted)). At least seven other circuits have reached the same conclusion. See Borja v. INS, 175 F.3d 732, 735-36 (9th Cir.1999) (en banc); Menghesha v. Gonzales, 450 F.3d 142, 148 (4th Cir.2006); Mohideen v. Gonzales, 416 F.3d 567, 570 (7th Cir.2005); De Brenner v. Ashcroft, 388 F.3d 629, 636 (8th Cir.2004); Girma v. INS, 283 F.3d 664, 667 (5th Cir.2002) (per curiam); Chang v. INS, 119 F.3d 1055, 1065 (3d Cir.1997); Osorio v. INS, 18 F.3d 1017, 1028-29 (2d Cir.1994); see also In re S-P-, 21 I. & N. Dec. 486, 492-95 (BIA 1996). [9] Thus, as long as an applicant can show that the persecution was motivated at least in part by a protected ground, the applicant can establish eligibility for asylum. Rivera, 487 F.3d at 821; see also Tan, 446 F.3d at 1375. We come, then, to the first issue in this appeal: whether under the facts and circumstances of this case  including the FARC's attempt to murder Montoya by shooting at his moving vehicle and to kidnap his daughter  the record compels a finding that Montoya suffered past persecution. We have little difficulty in holding that it does. Montoya testified that the FARC's death threats began in November 1999. Montoya reported the threats to government security forces, which led to the arrest of three FARC members. But less than two weeks later, the telephone calls resumed, except this time, the FARC expressly told Montoya that he was a military objective, thereby marking him, Ghisela, and the rest of his family for death. Montoya moved Ghisela to a university in Bogota to keep her safe from the FARC, but to no avail  within two months they located and attempted to kidnap her in Bogota. Montoya then sent Ghisela to the United States, but the FARC's death threats to Montoya and his family only became more frequent. Finally, as Montoya was driving home from a meeting with a political associate, Insignares, two armed FARC members on motorcycles followed him and shot at him multiple times while he was driving. Bullets struck the car but Montoya escaped injury. Soon after the incident, the FARC again called Montoya and specifically took responsibility for the shooting. The IJ described this testimony and found it credible. (Admin.Rec.47-48.) This undisputed record, we think, fairly compels the conclusion that Montoya suffered past persecution. The FARC repeatedly told Montoya that they would try to kill him, Ghisela, and his family. The FARC had already tried to kidnap Ghisela, and sending her halfway across the country could not keep her safe. We have said that persecution is an extreme concept. Sepulveda, 401 F.3d at 1231. We have no difficulty concluding that intentionally being shot at in a moving car multiple times by two armed men on motorcycles qualifies as extreme under any definition. Put simply, attempted murder is persecution. See, e.g., Deloso v. Ashcroft, 393 F.3d 858, 860 (9th Cir.2005) (finding past persecution when, within a two year span, applicant was shot at, attacked by a group of men with knives, and set upon by a man armed with a pipe); Fergiste v. INS, 138 F.3d 14, 17-18 (1st Cir.1998) (affirming the BIA's finding of past persecution where applicant had been shot in the shoulder and his aunt had been killed). In concluding that Montoya had failed to establish past persecution, the IJ omitted the details of the shooting from his legal analysis, instead focusing on the fact that Montoya was not physically harmed. ( Id. at 49.) But the observation that Montoya fortuitously escaped from the shooters unharmed does not undermine the basic conclusion that being shot at while driving is sufficiently extreme to constitute persecution. And while the government argues that there was no evidence of any intent to harm Montoya and his family, the notion that the two armed men on motorcycles were just trying to personally contact Montoya when they riddled his car with bullets strains credulity. ( See Respondent's Br. 20-21.) The motorcyclists' poor marksmanship does not undermine this conclusion. In Silva, a panel of this Court only assumed that being shot at constitutes persecution, but did not decide the issue because the evidence in that case did not compel the conclusion that the shooting was undertaken on account of a statutorily protected ground. 448 F.3d at 1238. Here, as we detail below, the record compels the conclusion that the FARC fired at Montoya specifically on account of his political opinion. We therefore decide today what Silva left open: that Montoya suffered past persecution when two FARC members on motorcycles followed him and intentionally shot at him in his moving car. See id. at 1246 (Carnes, J., dissenting) (stating that being shot at is persecution, especially when the attempted murder is preceded by a written threat to kill the victim because of her political activities and by an almost daily barrage of threatening phone calls. . . . ). [10] Indeed, the Supreme Court has observed that a well-founded fear of future persecution can exist even if the applicant only has a 10% chance of being shot, tortured, or otherwise persecuted. INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421, 440, 107 S.Ct. 1207, 94 L.Ed.2d 434 (1987) (emphasis added). If a 10% chance of being shot at some unspecified time may constitute a well-founded fear of future persecution, then an applicant's credible testimony that he was intentionally and repeatedly fired upon surely constitutes past persecution. Simply put, the IJ's determination on this point was not supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole. As for the corollary question  whether the FARC persecuted Montoya on account of a statutorily protected ground  we likewise conclude that the record compels an affirmative answer. The IJ determined that the FARC was interested in [Montoya] because of their need to raise money and that, therefore, the record does not establish that the FARC sought to harm [Montoya] because of his political activities. (Admin.Rec.50.) We disagree. Although the FARC did demand financial support from Montoya, the record as a whole compels the conclusion that the FARC also targeted Montoya because of his political activities. Montoya had been a successful businessman since 1987, but the FARC did not begin threatening him and Ghisela until November 17th, 1999, just five or six months after they started working on the Insignares campaign. Indeed, the undisputed record established that Montoya supported many Conservative Party candidates for office, encouraged his business contacts in various cities and towns to do so as well, and provided extensive logistical support for the party over an extended time frame. Moreover, the investigator's report, written when Montoya complained to government security forces about the FARC's threats, mentions nothing about the FARC's financial demands. Rather, the report expressly details only the FARC's political demands. Montoya told the government investigator that people that have called to [his] house . . . [and] tried to intimidate [him] in a vulgar way to [separate him]self from . . . political activities, that he should stop supporting Insignares or he would regret it, that they knew where [his] daughter studied and that she was an easy target for them, and that they had a presence at her university. ( Id. at 170.) In fact, the only evidence in the record of the FARC's financial demands indicates that those demands were limited to their initial threats of Montoya and Ghisela in November 1999. Even then, the financial demands seem almost an afterthought, and they were expressly accompanied by repeated references to and threats concerning Montoya's and Ghisela's association with the Conservative Party. ( Id. at 104, 168-69, 308.) Moreover, the FARC's financial interest in Montoya in no way undermines the conclusion, compelled by the record, that they also targeted him because of his political activities. See Borja, 175 F.3d at 735 ([T]he conclusion that a cause of persecution is economic does not necessarily imply that there cannot exist other causes of the persecution. (quoting Osorio, 18 F.3d at 1028)). Our case law is crystal clear on this point: Montoya is eligible for asylum as long as at least one motivation for the FARC's persecution of Montoya was on account of his political activities. See Rivera, 487 F.3d at 821; Tan, 446 F.3d at 1375; see also Sanchez, 392 F.3d at 438. In short, although there is evidence that the FARC demanded financial support from Montoya, the record as a whole compels the conclusion that for an extended period of time the FARC targeted Montoya, at least in part, on account of his political activities. To further support his conclusion that the FARC did not target Montoya on account of his political activities, the IJ found that (1) Montoya held a relatively minor position within the Conservative Party; (2) Insignares, the candidate for whom Montoya worked, was never seriously threatened at all by the FARC; and (3) there was no evidence that any others who occupy a similar position as did [Montoya] were ever threatened. (Admin.Rec.49-50.) These findings do not support the IJ's conclusion. First, we think it is irrelevant whether Montoya's position in the Conservative Party was in fact minor if indeed the FARC found his political role significant enough to attempt to kill him, as they plainly did. Second, we fail to see the relevance of the FARC's interactions with Insignares or other Conservative Party members similarly situated to Montoya because we can discern no requirement in the case law or in common sense that an applicant show that others who engaged in the same political activities were similarly persecuted. But, perhaps more importantly, the record almost completely contradicts each of the IJ's findings. On the question of Montoya's importance, the record contains two signed letters from Conservative Party officials addressed to Montoya. One is a letter from Insignares herself thanking Montoya and Ghisela for their considerable help on the campaign and expressing regret that the rebel forces obligated them to leave. ( Id. at 173.) The second letter is from a Conservative Party official thanking Montoya for his participation as a leader in the last campaign. ( Id. at 176 (emphasis added); see also id. (We lament[ ] your retirement from our[ ] organization but we understand that [the] threats and . . . attacks against you and your family is a powerful motive. . . . ).). As for whether the FARC ever threatened Insignares, all that the record shows is that Montoya did not know whether Insignares was ever threatened: Q. Do you know if Lourdes Insignar[e]s had any problems with the FARC or any guerilla groups? A. No. . . . Q. Sir, your testimony is that the FARC were threatening you, and they didn't threaten Lourdes, who is the person you were seeking to have elected? A. Because they saw me in a voting power. Q. Sir, your testimony is that they saw you as more of a threat than Lourdes herself? A. No. Q. Well, why would they threaten you and not Lourdes, sir? A. I don't know about any with Lourdes because she didn't give me any details about it. ( Id. at 110, 112 (emphasis added).) Finally, as for the IJ's finding that there was no evidence that any others who occupy a similar position as did [Montoya] were ever threatened, ( id. at 50), Montoya testified unambiguously that others in the Conservative Party in fact were threatened: Q. Sir, do you know if they threatened anyone else who helped Lourdes get elected? A. Yes. Q. Who else did they threaten? A. They threatened other candidates. Some of them they made 'em get out of the movement. They . . . threatened, they made mayors resign. ( Id. at 112-13.) In sum, we can find no record evidence, let alone substantial evidence, to support the IJ's conclusion that the FARC's persecution of Montoya was not on account of his political opinion. This record compels the conclusion that at least one of the FARC's motivations (and a powerful one at that) for targeting Montoya was precisely on account of his political opinion. We next turn to the question whether Montoya can avoid future persecution by relocating within Colombia. The IJ found that Montoya never attempted to relocate elsewhere in Colombia, and that there was  no evidence to support [Montoya's] claim that the FARC has the ability to harm him on account of his political opinion throughout . . . Colombia. ( Id. at 50-51 (emphasis added).) Our review of the record, however, indicates that the IJ does not seem to have considered substantial evidence supporting the conclusion that Montoya could not relocate. The Supreme Court has instructed that, when the IJ or BIA has not made findings of fact or has not applied the law to those facts, appellate courts should remand to allow the IJ to make such determinations in the first instance. See INS v. Ventura, 537 U.S. 12, 16-17, 123 S.Ct. 353, 154 L.Ed.2d 272 (2002) (per curiam) ([A] court of appeals should remand a case to an agency for decision of a matter that statutes place primarily in agency hands. This principle has obvious importance in the immigration context.); see also Gonzales v. Thomas, 547 U.S. 183, 126 S.Ct. 1613, 1615, 164 L.Ed.2d 358 (2006) (per curiam) (A court of appeals is not generally empowered to conduct a de novo inquiry into the matter being reviewed and to reach its own conclusions based on such an inquiry. Rather, the proper course, except in rare circumstances, is to remand to the agency for additional investigation or explanation. (quotation marks omitted)). And the general practice in this circuit is to remand when the IJ or BIA fails to make adequate findings or give reasoned consideration to all the evidence. Tan, 446 F.3d at 1377 (quotation marks omitted); see also Mezvrishvili v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 467 F.3d 1292, 1297 (11th Cir. 2006) (per curiam) (remanding because the BIA and the Immigration Judge failed to render a reasoned decision); Antipova v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 392 F.3d 1259, 1265 (11th Cir.2004) (remanding because the absence of [a] reasoned discussion . . . undercuts any meaningful review (citation omitted)). We remand this case to allow the IJ to determine whether Montoya can relocate within Colombia. That determination should be made in light of our holding today that Montoya has established past persecution on account of his political activities. As such, he is entitled to a presumption of future persecution. The government may rebut this presumption by showing, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Montoya could avoid future persecution by relocating within Colombia if, under all the circumstances, it would be reasonable to expect him to do so. [11] See Arboleda, 434 F.3d at 1223; 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(1)(i)(B). Among the pieces of evidence the IJ does not appear to have considered concerning whether Montoya could relocate are these. The U.S. Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2002 and 2004 contained in the record describe the FARC's violent activities throughout Colombia. Thus, for example, the 2002 Report says that after the election of President Alvaro Uribe that year, the FARC attempted to destabilize the country prior to Uribe's inauguration by threatening all local elected officials throughout the country.  ( Id. at 147 (emphasis added).) Likewise, the 2004 Report observes that Guerrillas, particularly the FARC, committed hundreds of intentional illegal killings as well as politically motivated kidnappings throughout the country. ( Id. at 226, 230-31.) In fact, this Court recently concluded that the FARC has a presence in virtually all of the nation's 32 departments and urban centers and has a country-wide capability to harm. [12] Ruiz, 479 F.3d at 767; see also Arboleda, 434 F.3d at 1224 n. 2 (It is undisputed that the FARC is the largest and most widespread of any guerrilla group in Colombia.). Perhaps the most significant piece of evidence that the IJ does not appear to have considered is that although Montoya himself never tried to relocate within Colombia, his daughter Ghisela  who was marked for death by the FARC for the same reasons as Montoya  did. On March 15, 2000, Montoya removed Ghisela from the university in Barranquilla and sent her to study in Bogota, which is some 450 miles away, or about a 45-minute flight, from Barranquilla. Nevertheless, it took the FARC little more than six weeks to locate her. Ghisela stated in her application that on May 2nd she began to receive threatening telephone calls from the FARC in Bogota. (Admin.Rec.308.) And eight days later, on the evening of May 10th, the FARC attempted to kidnap her in Bogota as she left the university. ( Id. at 46.) The fact that the FARC attempted to kidnap Ghisela despite her relocation to Bogota is clear evidence of both the FARC's interest in her and the extent of their reach. Because the IJ failed to render a reasoned decision regarding the efficacy of internal relocation and does not appear to have considered the evidence in the record, we cannot meaningfully review the IJ's determination on that issue. [13] Accordingly, we remand the case to the IJ for further review and to make a determination in the first instance whether relocation is both possible and reasonable. [14] See Arboleda, 434 F.3d at 1226.