Bonnet v. Garland

• Decision Date: 13 December 2021
• Docket Number: No. 19-2175,19-2175
• Citation: 20 F.4th 80
• Parties: Claude Mary Luistilus BONNET, Petitioner, v. Merrick B. GARLAND, United States Attorney General, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

20 F.4th 80

Claude Mary Luistilus BONNET, Petitioner,

v.Merrick B. GARLAND,^* United States Attorney General, Respondent.

No. 19-2175

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

December 13, 2021

Julia Ciachurski,^*** with whom Mary P. Holper, Peter Alfredson, and Boston College Legal Services LAB, Immigration Clinic were on brief, for petitioner.

Tim Ramnitz, Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, with whom Bryan Boynton, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, and Shelley R. Goad, Assistant Director, Office of Immigration Litigation, were on brief, for respondent.

Before Kayatta and Barron, Circuit Judges. Talwani,^** District Judge.

BARRON, Circuit Judge.

Claude Mary Luistilus Bonnet, a native and citizen of Haiti, petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") that affirms the denial of his application for protection under the Convention Against Torture ("CAT"). We deny the petition.

I.

Bonnet immigrated to the United States as a legal permanent resident in 1999, when he was sixteen years old. In December 2017, Bonnet pleaded guilty in Massachusetts state court to multiple counts of possession with intent to distribute Class B and Class E controlled substances. He was sentenced to six months of incarceration.

Subsequently, the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") issued Bonnet a Notice to Appear that alleged that he was subject to removal under Sections 237(a)(2)(A)(iii) and (B)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA") due to his conviction for possession to distribute a Class E substance, see 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2). Bonnet, proceeding pro se, filed a Form I-589 application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT.

An Immigration Judge ("IJ") held a hearing on the merits of the claims on July 13, 2018, at which Bonnet and certain of his family members testified. Following the hearing, the IJ issued an oral decision that denied Bonnet the relief that he requested on his claims. The IJ found that Bonnet was statutorily ineligible for asylum and withholding of removal because his conviction for possession of a Class E substance with intent to distribute was a conviction of a "particularly serious crime," see 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(2)(B)(i). The IJ also denied Bonnet's claim for protection under the CAT because it concluded both that Bonnet did "not fear anyone in particular," and that he had not brought forward sufficient evidence to demonstrate that he was entitled to protection under the CAT.

Bonnet appealed the IJ's ruling to the BIA. Bonnet's conviction for possession with intent to distribute a Class E substance was vacated while the appeal was pending. The BIA granted Bonnet's unopposed motion to remand on December 6, 2018, because he had only been found removable based on that conviction.

Bonnet was issued an amended Notice to Appear on February 6, 2019. The Notice to Appear alleged that Bonnet was removable due to his conviction for possession with intent to distribute a Class B substance, see 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii), (B)(i).

Bonnet, now represented, submitted an Amended Form I-589. At a master calendar hearing in front of the IJ on February 20, 2019, Bonnet represented that he would present new evidence that was unavailable when he proceeded pro se in responding to his earlier Notice to Appear based on the now-vacated conviction.

Bonnet subsequently submitted a declaration from Dr. Chelsey Kivland, an anthropologist at Dartmouth College. The declaration concerned the treatment in Haiti of criminal deportees to that country.

The IJ then held a merits hearing on April 9, 2019. The IJ admitted Kivland as an expert without objection from the government. She testified about conditions in Haiti.

The IJ denied Bonnet's application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT. Bonnet appealed to the BIA, which adopted and affirmed the IJ's decision, while offering its own reasoning in support of its ruling.

Bonnet timely filed this petition for review.¹ The petition challenges only the denial of his request for protection under the CAT.

II.

To make out a CAT claim, a petitioner must show "that it is more likely than not that he will be tortured if returned to his home country." Mazariegos v. Lynch, 790 F.3d 280, 287 (1st Cir. 2015) (citing Romilus v. Ashcroft, 385 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir. 2004) ). This requires the applicant to "offer specific objective evidence showing that he will be subject to: ‘(1) an act causing severe physical or mental pain or suffering; (2) intentionally inflicted; (3) for a proscribed purpose; (4) by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official who has custody or physical control of the victim; and (5) not arising from lawful sanctions.’ " Romilus, 385 F.3d at 8 (emphasis omitted) (quoting Elien v. Ashcroft, 364 F.3d 392, 398 (1st Cir. 2004) ); see also 8 C.F.R. § 208.18(a).

"When the BIA has adopted and affirmed the IJ's ruling, but has included discussion of some of the IJ's bases for decision, we review both the IJ's and BIA's opinions." Chanthou Hem v. Mukasey, 514 F.3d 67, 69 (1st Cir. 2008). We review the findings of fact below "under the ‘substantial evidence’ standard to determine if those findings are ‘supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole.’ " Marroquín-Rivera v. Sessions, 861 F.3d 7, 9 (1st Cir. 2017) (quoting Ordonez-Quino v. Holder, 760 F.3d 80, 87 (1st Cir. 2014) ). We review claims of legal error "de novo, ‘subject to appropriate principles of administrative deference.’ " Ordonez-Quino, 760 F.3d at 87 (quoting Larios v. Holder, 608 F.3d 105, 107 (1st Cir. 2010) ).

III.

Bonnet bases his CAT claim in part on the torture that he contends that he would be subject to in Haiti while "imprisoned" there as a criminal deportee, and we begin with his challenge to the denial of that aspect of his CAT claim. Bonnet advances numerous arguments in support of this challenge,² but the necessary premise for each of them is the same: that the IJ erred in finding -- or, at the least, that the BIA erred in affirming the IJ's finding -- that Bonnet had failed to show that it was more likely than not that he would be "detain[ed]" in Haiti.

This premise necessarily underlies each of Bonnet's arguments regarding this aspect of his CAT claim, because he relies with respect to it on Kivland's testimony regarding the likelihood that criminal deportees will be subjected to deliberate abuse in Haitian "jail and prisons," including treatment that may rise to the level of torture. Thus, if he cannot show that he would be detained in a jail or prison in Haiti, then her testimony about the treatment to which criminal deportees are subjected in Haitian jails or prisons cannot provide the support that he contends that it supplies.

We thus must review Kivland's testimony on this critical point. Kivland testified that upon their arrival in Haiti deportees "go through processing ... by Haitian authorities." She described this "processing" as occurring "at the ... airport or ... a jail that is close to the airport." Kivland went on to explain in her testimony that, during "processing," criminal deportees are "fingerprinted, photographed and questioned regarding the[ir] criminal history and the nature of their charges." Kivland also testified that although criminal deportees are supposed to "be processed and released on the day of arrival," certain of them are subject to "further questioning" and may "be detained."

In elaborating on the "processing" of criminal deportees, Kivland testified that individual officers responsible for conducting it have "much discretion" regarding who "needs to be further questioned because they constitute a threat to society or would violate [ ]one of the law enforcement priorities of the Haitian police." She also explained that she considered criminal deportees to have undergone "prolonged detention" if they were not released on the day of processing and instead were held over.

Kivland testified that the longest period of "prolonged detention" that she had heard of lasted "a month" and that the average length of "prolonged detention" is "[t]hree to five days." She did testify, however, that some criminal deportees "had not been detained beyond one day of processing." Moreover, Kivland did not testify that criminal deportees who are released the same day or who are not held in "jail or prison" are themselves subject to the kind of abuse that she testified that criminal deportees who are held in Haitian jails and prisons face.

Following the close of evidence at the proceedings at which Kivland testified, the IJ found that Bonnet had "merely shown that an officer could detain him in the officer's discretion, not that an officer is more likely than not to detain [Bonnet] upon his return to Haiti." Then, in denying Bonnet's appeal of that finding, the BIA found that the IJ's finding that Bonnet had "not demonstrated that it is more likely than not that he will be imprisoned is not clearly erroneous" and noted that Kivland had not discussed the "likelihood" that Bonnet "would be imprisoned or detained upon initial screening."

Thus, Bonnet must show that the IJ's finding -- as affirmed by the BIA -- is not sustainable on this record. To do so, Bonnet directs our attention to the fact that Kivland was asked at the proceedings before the IJ whether a prior drug conviction, a lack of familial ties in Haiti, and perceived political opposition to the ruling regime would each make it "more or less likely" that a criminal deportee would experience "prolonged detention in [Haitian] prisons" and that, for each, she said "[m]ore likely."

Bonnet argues that it was clear in context that Kivland meant in so answering that it was "more likely than not" that Bonnet would "suffer prolonged detention in a Haitian prison." Thus, Bonnet contends, it follows that in finding that he had failed to establish it was more...