Court Opinion

ID: 9405012
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-27 00:00:38.028987+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:18.557504
License: Public Domain

Case: 21-60182         Document: 00516800497             Page: 1      Date Filed: 06/26/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit
                                      ____________                              United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                         Fifth Circuit

                                        No. 21-60182
                                                                                        FILED
                                                                                      June 26, 2023
                                      ____________
                                                                                  Lyle W. Cayce
   Simon Hagos Gidey,                                                                  Clerk

                                                                                 Petitioner,

                                             versus

   Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General,

                                                                               Respondent.
                      ______________________________

      Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals
                           Agency No. A213 482 834
                  ______________________________

   Before Smith, Clement, and Wilson, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam:*
          Simon Hagos Gidey, purportedly a native and citizen of Eritrea, was
   served with a notice to appear for arriving in the United States without a visa
   or other valid entry document. He conceded removal and applied for asylum,
   withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture
   (CAT). The immigration judge (IJ) denied his applications. Gidey appealed
   to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), which dismissed his appeal.
   Gidey petitioned this court for review. We deny the petition.

          _____________________
          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 21-60182      Document: 00516800497           Page: 2   Date Filed: 06/26/2023

                                     No. 21-60182

          Gidey testified as follows at his removal hearing. He was born in 1994
   and raised primarily by his mother in Senafe, Eritrea. His father was a soldier.
   In 2016, Gidey’s father was arrested, and his family’s income plummeted.
   To make up for the shortfall, Gidey started working at a bakery in May 2016.
   He completed eleventh grade a month later and, per Eritrean law, was
   required to report to a military camp to begin compulsory military service.
   Gidey shortly received two summonses from Eritrean authorities directing
   him to report. He ignored them because he knew he would be arrested if he
   reported and because he needed to support his family financially. He further
   explained that he opposes Eritrean military service because it is “like
   slavery,” “human rights are not respected,” it is unpaid, it lasts indefinitely,
   and “[soldiers] are [] servant[s] of the officials.”
          In October 2016, after Eritrean authorities arrested Gidey’s mother,
   he turned himself in. He was detained for two weeks. During that time, he
   was beaten and interrogated. He escaped detention by scaling a prison fence
   and traveled by foot through Eritrea into Ethiopia. Gidey was questioned by
   Ethiopian authorities, received a ration card, and completed forms to obtain
   refugee status. He was transported to a refugee camp called Hitsats, where
   he lived for about three years. Gidey testified that he was politically active
   there and openly expressed his views against the Eritrean government.
          According to Gidey, after Ethiopia and Eritrea entered into a peace
   treaty, agents of the Eritrean government began entering Ethiopian refugee
   camps to kidnap Eritreans. In August 2019, Gidey fled to Brazil with the
   assistance of a smuggler who took Gidey’s ration card, but supplied Gidey
   with an Ethiopian passport that had Gidey’s identifying information on it.
   Gidey arrived in Laredo, Texas in February 2020 and applied for admission
   to enter the United States. In support, Gidey submitted a declaration, birth
   certificate, handwritten baptismal certificate, letters from his family
   members, and country conditions evidence.

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Case: 21-60182       Document: 00516800497            Page: 3      Date Filed: 06/26/2023

                                       No. 21-60182

          The IJ held that Gidey’s testimony was “lacking in persuasiveness
   and that corroboration was necessary.” Specifically, the IJ faulted Gidey for
   failing to produce the military summonses and proof of his employment at
   the bakery. Gidey explained that he could not provide the summonses
   because he did not ask his family in Eritrea to send them. He clarified that he
   assumed his family had thrown them away. As for proof of employment at
   the bakery, Gidey proffered only a letter from his mother, which the IJ found
   insufficient because she was an interested witness not subject to cross-
   examination.
          Further, the IJ found that Gidey’s “identity was questionable as
   well.” Though acknowledging that Gidey provided a birth certificate and
   handwritten baptismal certificate, the IJ found that neither document had
   been authenticated. The IJ also noted that Gidey had obtained an “Ethiopian
   passport that allowed him to travel through many different countries on his
   way to the United States.” This fact, in conjunction with “the manner in
   which [Gidey] allegedly obtained his Ethiopian passport” and “the alleged
   length of time [Gidey] indicated he was in Ethiopia,” led the IJ to conclude
   that Gidey’s “nationality could be Eritrean or Ethiopian.” Given the lack of
   corroboration, the IJ found that Gidey could not meet his burden to show
   entitlement to relief.1
          Gidey appealed to the BIA, which upheld the IJ’s determination that
   Gidey’s claims were not sufficiently corroborated and rejected Gidey’s
   explanations for his failure to corroborate.2 Gidey now seeks our review.

          _____________________
          1
            The IJ, assuming Gidey’s persuasiveness, alternatively analyzed Gidey’s claims
   on the merits and reached the same result.
          2
             The BIA also considered the merits of Gidey’s claims in the alternative and
   reached the same result.

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Case: 21-60182      Document: 00516800497           Page: 4   Date Filed: 06/26/2023

                                     No. 21-60182

          “We review the order of the BIA and the ruling of the IJ to the extent
   it influences the order of the BIA.” Rui Yang v. Holder, 664 F.3d 580, 584
   (5th Cir. 2011). We review for substantial evidence the BIA’s determinations
   that Gidey was not eligible for asylum, withholding of removal, or CAT relief.
   Chen v. Gonzales, 470 F.3d 1131, 1134 (5th Cir. 2006). When we review for
   substantial evidence, “reversal is improper unless we decide not only that the
   evidence supports a contrary conclusion, but also that the evidence compels
   it.” Id. (citation and quotation marks omitted). Gidey bears the burden of
   establishing his entitlement to asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT
   relief. Rui Yang, 664 F.3d at 584, 588–89. He fails to meet his burden, as he
   has not shown that the evidence compels a conclusion contrary to that
   reached by the BIA. See id.
          Insofar as he argues that the BIA erred by requiring him to submit
   corroborating evidence, this argument fails. See id. at 585–87. Moreover, the
   BIA’s conclusion that Gidey reasonably could have provided the requisite
   corroborating evidence is supported by substantial evidence. See id. at 587.
   Finally, the country conditions evidence that Gidey submitted does not
   establish that it is more likely than not that he will be persecuted, much less
   tortured, in the country of removal because Gidey failed to persuade the IJ of
   his identity, i.e., that he is a native and citizen of Eritrea. True enough, the
   BIA has granted CAT relief to Eritreans “based on the Eritrean
   government’s practices and its appalling human rights record,” Milat v.
   Holder, 755 F.3d 354, 364 (5th Cir. 2014), but Gidey’s CAT claim falters, like
   his others, because he has not provided sufficient evidence that he is Eritrean,
   as opposed to Ethiopian. Gidey thus failed to prove that he falls into the
   categories of people who, per the country conditions evidence in the record,
   may be tortured in Eritrea: Eritrean nationals who evade military service and
   Eritreans who leave the country illegally.
                                                        PETITION DENIED.

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