Court Opinion

ID: 9441651
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:00:22.845385+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:46.355462
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-60030        Document: 00516844560             Page: 1      Date Filed: 08/03/2023

             United States Court of Appeals
                  for the Fifth Circuit                                  United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                  Fifth Circuit
                                     ____________                               FILED
                                                                           August 3, 2023
                                      No. 23-60030
                                                                            Lyle W. Cayce
                                    Summary Calendar
                                                                                 Clerk
                                    ____________

   Jagjit Singh,

                                                                                  Petitioner,

                                            versus

   Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General,

                                                                                Respondent.
                     ______________________________

                        Petition for Review of an Order of the
                            Board of Immigration Appeals
                              Agency No. A208 170 071
                     ______________________________

   Before Barksdale, Graves, and Oldham, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam:*
         Jagjit Singh, a native and citizen of India and proceeding pro se,
   petitions for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA)
   denying his motion to reopen.
         In 2018, an Immigration Judge (IJ)—after Singh conceded his
   removability—ordered him removable and denied his application for asylum,

         _____________________
         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 23-60030     Document: 00516844560          Page: 2   Date Filed: 08/03/2023

                                   No. 23-60030

   withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against
   Torture. In doing so, it found Singh’s testimony incredible. The BIA
   affirmed that decision in March 2020, upholding the IJ’s adverse credibility
   determination and ruling Singh failed to present evidence independent of his
   testimony to support his application. This court denied his petition for
   review, likewise upholding the adverse credibility finding. See Singh v.
   Garland, 843 F. App’x 632 (5th Cir. 2021). Singh filed the instant motion in
   May 2022, alleging changed country conditions warranted reopening.
          Because motions to reopen are “disfavored”, we review denials of
   those motions “under a highly deferential abuse-of-discretion standard”.
   Zhao v. Gonzalez, 404 F.3d 295, 303–04 (5th Cir. 2005) (citations omitted).
   The BIA “abuses its discretion when it issues a decision that is capricious,
   irrational, utterly without foundation in the evidence, based on legally
   erroneous interpretations of statutes or regulations, or based on unexplained
   departures from regulations or established policies”. Barrios-Cantarero v.
   Holder, 772 F.3d 1019, 1021 (5th Cir. 2014).
          “[T]o prevail on a motion to reopen alleging changed country
   conditions where the persecution claim was previously denied based on an
   adverse credibility finding in the underlying proceedings, the respondent
   must either overcome the prior determination or show that the new claim is
   independent of the evidence that was found to be not credible”. Matter of F-
   S-N-, 28 I. & N. Dec. 1, 3 (BIA 2020).
          Singh has failed to overcome the prior adverse credibility
   determination. The BIA ruled he failed to “proffer specific arguments” in
   his motion to reopen “to contest the credibility concerns relied on by the
   [IJ]” in denying his application for relief. Singh does not challenge, before
   this court, the BIA’s ruling nor does he even attempt to address the IJ’s
   concerns regarding the inconsistencies in his testimony, other than to

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                                    No. 23-60030

   characterize them as “trivial” and “not material to [his] claim of
   persecution”. This, however, is identical to the argument Singh made in his
   brief before the BIA, which was rejected as insufficient. See, e.g., Singh v.
   Sessions, 880 F.3d 220, 225 (5th Cir. 2018) (explaining “IJ may rely on any
   inconsistency or omission in making an adverse credibility determination”
   (emphasis added) (citation omitted)). Singh fails to show the BIA’s decision
   was “capricious, irrational, [or] utterly without foundation in the evidence”.
   Barrios-Cantarero, 772 F.3d at 1021.
          The BIA also reasonably concluded Singh failed to present a new
   claim that was independent from the evidence previously found not credible.
   See Matter of F-S-N-, 28 I. & N. Dec. at 3. Here, the “new” allegations
   presented in Singh’s motion to reopen are: he is still a practicing Sikh who
   supports the Mann Party; and, since his removal hearing, Badal Party
   members threatened his safety in India if he continued to support the Mann
   Party. These allegations are not independent of his prior claim of political
   persecution by the Badal Party; they “merely supplement[] it” and
   “intertwin[e] the new with the old”. Id. at 5 (citation omitted). As such, the
   BIA properly concluded that “[t]he grounds for [Singh’s] current fear of
   future harm are not new or independent of his prior application, but rather
   [are] a continuation of his previously discredited claims”. See id. at 4
   (providing “newly raised claim is not independent” of prior claim where it
   “is, in essence, a continuation of the respondent’s previously discredited
   claims”).
          DENIED.

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