Dehonzai v. Holder
| Decision Date | 23 May 2011 |
| Docket Number | No. 09–2071.,09–2071. |
| Citation | 650 F.3d 1 |
| Parties | Alphonse DEHONZAI, Petitioner,v.Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Jeffrey B. Rubin was on brief for petitioner.P. Michael Truman, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, Tony West, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, and Keith I. McManus, Senior Litigation Counsel, were on brief for respondent.Before LYNCH, Chief Judge, BOUDIN and THOMPSON, Circuit Judges.LYNCH, Chief Judge.
Alphonse Dehonzai, of the Ivory Coast, petitions for review of a July 10, 2009 order by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). The BIA, affirming an October 4, 2007 ruling of an Immigration Judge (IJ), denied Dehonzai's application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), finding he had not met his burden under any of those claims. Dehonzai argues that the BIA erred in finding he had not met his burden because there was error in the IJ's adverse credibility determination. We deny the petition. The record does not compel a reasonable factfinder to reach an opposite conclusion as to Dehonzai's failure to meet his burden or as to his credibility. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B).
Dehonzai entered the United States without authorization on July 25, 2000 from the Ivory Coast. He left his wife, Cecile, their three children, his mother, and three of his siblings there. In 2001, he applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT on the basis of political persecution. His application was denied, and he was deemed eligible for removal and issued a notice to appear on February 22, 2002. Dehonzai conceded removability but sought leave to seek asylum, protection under the CAT, and withholding of removal.
Dehonzai's refugee claims are predicated upon two separate incidents of arrest and detention in the Ivory Coast in 1992 and 2000. He described those incidents and relevant background facts to immigration officials on three occasions: (1) within his I–589 asylum application, filed in 2001,1 (2) within an affidavit executed on November 5, 2004 and submitted to the IJ in 2006, and (3) during testimony at a March 10, 2006 hearing before the IJ, one of four hearings held before the IJ.2 We describe the facts as set forth within Dehonzai's statements.
Dehonzai was born in the Ivory Coast in 1969. In 1988, he graduated from a vocational school that specialized in accounting. After his graduation, he began working as an accountant at Cocody Medical Center, where he was employed until April 2000.
While a student in 1985, Dehonzai joined the Fédération Estudiantine et Scolaire de Côte D'Ivoire (FESCI), a political organization comprised mainly of Ivorian students. Dehonzai also became involved with the Rassemblement des Républicans (RDR), an opposition political movement led by Alassane D. Ouattara. Dehonzai served as an advisor at the RDR's youth branch in Cocody from 1991 until May 2000.
On February 18, 1992, Dehonzai and other members of both FESCI and RDR participated in a peaceful march of protest against the Ivorian government, primarily seeking the reinstatement of free higher education. Following the march, Dehonzai and several other members of FESCI and RDR were arrested. Dehonzai was held in the Cocody police station for three days. During his 2006 testimony, he stated for the first time that the police kicked him, hit him with wires, and made him do pushups during his 1992 detention. During his 2006 testimony he also stated for the first time that, following his release in 1992, the police threatened to kill him if he continued to oppose the government.
By his own account, Dehonzai did not have another encounter with government officials after 1992 until 2000. In the spring of that year, military personnel arrested the journalist Joules Toualy, whom Dehonzai claimed was his cousin.3 Dehonzai asserted that two soldiers in plain clothes arrested Toualy at the offices of “Le Jeune Democrate,” the newspaper at which Toualy was employed. Toualy was apparently arrested for having written an article regarding military mutiny.
On April 12, 2000, Dehonzai criticized the government's treatment of Toualy to at least twelve of his colleagues at the Cocody Medical Center while they were dining in the employee cafeteria. Dehonzai posited, but offered no proof, that one of those colleagues was aware that Toualy was Dehonzai's cousin and reported him to the Republican Guard—described by Dehonzai as the “local FBI”—sometime thereafter. Dehonzai said he was fired from his job at Cocody Medical Center on April 15, 2000, three days after criticizing Toualy's arrest.
Dehonzai first mentioned his firing at the March 10, 2006 hearing. When asked why he was fired, he replied, He also testified that in firing him, his new boss told him that he was “not here to do politics” and that Toualy's arrest and treatment were “none of this office's business.” Dehonzai provided no further information regarding the relationship between his termination and his criticism of Toualy or his subsequent arrest.4
Dehonzai testified that on May 29, 2000, two soldiers of the Republican Guard entered his house, arrested him, and transported him to the Akwedo military camp where he was placed in a small cell. Dehonzai claims his arrest and detention occurred as a direct result of the statements criticizing Toualy's arrest that he made six weeks prior. Other than his own testimony there is no evidence that he was arrested, detained or persecuted in 2000.
Dehonzai maintains that he was detained for two days,5 during which he was subjected to various forms of mistreatment, including being beaten, kicked, and flogged with wires. In his asylum application and his affidavit, Dehonzai gave a vivid description of his mistreatment following his arrest. He stated: “They beat me with a bundle of electric wire with tennis ball at the end, the ball continually struck my back.”
This description virtually copies Toualy's description of his own arrest and detention. Toualy's description was published in a September 19, 2000 Amnesty International report submitted by Dehonzai in support of his refugee claims:
When questioned as to why his description of his mistreatment in 2000 was nearly identical to the description used by Toualy within the Amnesty International Report, Dehonzai did not directly answer. He said, rather, “I apologize.” He went on to say, This last assertion regarding crawling in water was one he had not given before.
Upon his release from the Akwedo military camp in 2000, Dehonzai says he was told by police that “next time, we're going to kill you for good.” Fearful of returning to his own home, Dehonzai testified he stayed at the home of his cousin, Jean Baptiste. While there, Dehonzai says he learned through word of mouth that military personnel had gone to his home and inquired as to his whereabouts. Frightened by the news of their visit, Dehonzai procured another person's passport with the help of Jean Baptiste and fled the Ivory Coast without his wife or three children, whom he believes are still in the Ivory Coast but with whom he now has no contact. Dehonzai also left his mother and three of his siblings behind in the Ivory Coast. At no time has Dehonzai asserted that any of his relatives were ever subject to persecution by the Ivory Coast government while there.
Dehonzai traveled directly from the Ivory Coast to the United States, arriving in New York's John F. Kennedy Airport on July 25, 2000.
At the March 10, 2006 hearing, Dehonzai was specifically asked to clarify certain elements of this factual account, and was often asked to do so repeatedly in light of the IJ's view that he was evasive in answering questions. He was asked several times to provide information regarding the passport he used to enter the United States, including the name that was used on the document. Dehonzai refused to provide any information, stating “when my cousin got me this document, he had me swear because if I give the name, they're going to kill my family.” Later, at an April 6, 2007 hearing, Dehonzai did submit the name used on the passport.
When asked to provide support for his claim that Joules Toualy was his cousin, Dehonzai submitted a letter allegedly from Toualy—written by hand, in French, and dated April 12, 2004—which states:
Good morning cousin Alphonse,
Life difficulties contribute to the formation of a human being. I believe you know that. Here the situation remains critique specially in the political plan. The assault to the residences, murder, and denunciation do happen frequently. Probably if you were there you would be dead or disappeared like the others. The case of your handsome Toh Laurent since 2003 it is palpable. Even the pianist Marcelin Yace and the comedian H would be killed by the unknown. It is how the fear is here. In hiding, at moment, I wrote this letter, I have no news about your children.
I stop here.
God be with you and regards to yours.
Yours,
There was no corroborating evidence the letter was in fact from Toualy or that Toualy was in fact Dehonzai's cousin. Although he was asked at the March 2006 hearing to provide additional support for his claim that Toualy was his cousin before his next hearing in April 2007, Dehonzai did not do so. Eventually, in a June 2007 submission to...
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