Djadjou v. Holder

• Decision Date: 05 December 2011
• Docket Number: No. 10–1889.,10–1889.
• Citation: 662 F.3d 265
• Parties: Pulcherie Tekeu DJADJOU, a/k/a Pulcherie Djadjou, Petitioner, v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

662 F.3d 265

Pulcherie Tekeu DJADJOU, a/k/a Pulcherie Djadjou, Petitioner,

v.Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General, Respondent.

No. 10–1889.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: Sept. 22, 2011.Decided: Dec. 5, 2011.

ARGUED: Lawrence David Rosenberg, Jones Day, Washington, D.C., for Petitioner. Keith Ian McManus, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Danielle Beach–Oswald, Beach–Oswald Immigration Law Associates, PC, Washington, D.C., for Petitioner. Tony West, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, Joseph A. O'Connell, Office of Immigration Litigation, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.

Before WILKINSON, WYNN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.

Petition denied by published opinion. Judge FLOYD wrote the majority opinion, in which Judge WILKINSON concurred. Judge WYNN wrote a dissenting opinion.

OPINION

FLOYD, Circuit Judge:

Pulcherie Tekeu Djadjou, a native and citizen of Cameroon, applied for asylum and withholding of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT). The Immigration Judge (IJ) denied all forms of relief, and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed. Djadjou now petitions this court for review of the BIA's decision. Her petition asserts that the agency erred in making an adverse credibility determination and, even if it did not so err, independent evidence exists to establish past persecution. We uphold the adverse credibility determination as supported by substantial evidence and agree with the agency that Djadjou failed to provide sufficient independent evidence establishing past persecution. Accordingly, we deny the petition.

I.

A.

Djadjou obtained a nonimmigrant visa and was admitted into the United States on March 12, 2002. Her authorization to stay in the United States expired two days later on March 14, 2002. She overstayed her authorization without permission. Not quite a year later, on February 18, 2003, she applied for asylum and withholding of removal under the INA and protection under the CAT. After the Department of Homeland Security served her with a Notice to Appear, Djadjou conceded removability at her initial hearing, but again requested asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT.

The IJ conducted a merits hearing that spanned the course of two days in August and September 2008. At the hearing, Djadjou testified and offered one witness to testify on her behalf. At the conclusion of the hearing, the IJ rendered an oral decision denying all forms of relief and ordered her voluntary departure. The BIA affirmed the IJ. Before explaining the bases for their decisions, we will recount the contents of Djadjou's testimony and her corroborating evidence.

B.

Djadjou testified that she fled Cameroon because her life was in danger. This danger, she maintained, arose from the persecution that she suffered at the hands of Cameroonian officials. According to her testimony and application, Cameroonian officials arrested her four times and beat and raped her during her detainments. Her persecution, she insisted, resulted from her political activities with opposition organizations. What follows is Djadjou's version of events as reflected in her application and testimony.

Djadjou became involved in politics in Cameroon in 1991. At the time, she was a student at a university. While involved with a campus opposition group called the “Group of Less,” she rose to the rank of action coordinator, which entailed organizing strikes and marches. In response to her political activities, the Cameroonian government blacklisted her from obtaining employment. This blacklisting ultimately caused her to open her own store in the Mokolo market in Yaounde, where she sold shoes, bags, jewelry, and clothes. She employed one salesperson at her store.

As a businesswoman, Djadjou traveled to different countries to buy goods. She traveled to the Gabon Republic five times between 1990 and 1998, and traveled to Syria on at least two occasions. Her passport admitted into evidence, which was issued in 1997, reflected that she went to the Gabon Republic in 1999. Each time she returned to Cameroon.

On May 27, 1991, like many of her fellow members in the Group of Less, she joined and became involved in the Social Democratic Front (SDF), an opposition party in Cameroon. She became secretary general of the young adults for the Mokolo, Komkana, Madagascar, and Carriere wards of the SDF in 1992. In that capacity, she was responsible for, among other things, notifying members about meetings and writing reports for the party. She remained a member of the SDF until 1996, when she changed political parties.

The SDF held its first meeting in Yaounde in May 1992. Sellers in the Mokolo market played a role in organizing the meeting. The SDF demanded that the government form a “National Sovereign Conference” to address the social, political, and cultural problems plaguing Cameroon. In response, the local police broke all of the counters of the Mokolo market sellers. When the SDF members resisted the local police by throwing rocks and building barricades, the police arrested them for public disturbance.

It was in this context that police officers first arrested Djadjou on May 18, 1992, during a protest march at the Mokolo market. She had helped mobilize the march and distribute flyers. After her arrest, the officers took her to the police station where they beat her on her legs and feet while insulting and threatening her. That night, an officer raped her in an interrogation room. Over the course of the next three days, she suffered further beatings. On May 21, 1992, her uncle obtained her release after speaking with the police commissioner.

Djadjou joined the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC), another opposition organization, on January 1, 1997. She rose in prominence within the organization and was elected secretary general that same year. Her activities as secretary general again involved providing information about meetings, printing flyers, and writing reports.

Her second arrest occurred on June 1, 1997, as a result of her position as secretary general of the SCNC. In April or May 1997, the government proclaimed, falsely, that the SCNC had attacked and vandalized government buildings. In response, officers arrested Djadjou at her store in Yaounde and detained her for a week. Because of her position in the SCNC, they thought she or her associates might have been responsible. Throughout the week, her detainers beat and insulted her. Her uncle again intervened to secure her release, showing the police commissioner invoices demonstrating that she was elsewhere at the time of the alleged attacks and vandalism.

Officials arrested Djadjou a third time on July 10, 2000, again because of her perceived role as a leader in the SCNC. That previous December, a radio station incorrectly announced that certain provinces had declared their independence as the Federal Republic of Southern Cameroon, prompting the government to investigate and round up the leaders of the SCNC, including Djadjou. Pursuant to a police summons, officials arrested Djadjou in Bassamba, where she had fled after hearing that officers were arresting SCNC members in Yaounde. The officers took her to Bangangte and detained her for three days. During that time, her detainers denied her food, beat her, and tortured her. The officers also shut down her store while she was in detainment. Her uncle, along with twenty other family members, convened on the police station and demanded her release. The commandant of the station relented and released her.

Djadjou's fourth and final arrest came on December 15, 2001. This arrest occurred at the market in Yaounde. She was conferring with a fellow SCNC sympathizer about organizing a meeting when an official approached and began accusing her of sanitation violations at her store. The official ordered an officer to break down her counter and seize her merchandise. When she resisted, they arrested her. On the way to the police station, a car door was closed on her leg, cutting it badly. At the police station, two officers held her down and beat her. They placed her in a cell full of water and urine with six other detainees. Her detention lasted for four days, during which her detainers denied her health care, water, and food. After she lost consciousness and collapsed on the fifth day, they took her to the hospital. When the officer guarding her room at the hospital went to get a drink, she, with the help of her uncle, escaped through a back door.

Following Djadjou's escape from the hospital, her uncle drove her to Douala Bonaberi, where she hid at her older sister's house until it was safe for her to depart Cameroon. Because she was accustomed to traveling, she had her passport with her. To help her escape Cameroon, she obtained a visa from the United States Embassy under the guise of attending the 49th World Congress Association of Women Entrepreneurs, which was being held in Mexico from January 25, 2002, to January 31, 2002. Yet, when she went to the airport on January 25, she observed police officers looking for her. Frightened, she abandoned her plans and returned to hiding at her sister's house.

Her sister made arrangements for her to leave Cameroon in March 2002. This attempt was successful. She departed on March 11, 2002, and arrived in the United States the following day. Since her arrival in the United States, Cameroonian officials have continued looking for her. In October 2007, they destroyed her business in her absence.

C.

Djadjou offered testimonial and documentary evidence to corroborate her testimony and application.

She admitted documentation from the SDF to support her testimony as to the persecution she suffered from her activities in that organization. She offered an SDF membership card. Also, she...