Dobrota and Teodorescu, 99-1343
| Decision Date | 06 January 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 99-1343,99-1343 |
| Citation | 195 F.3d 970 |
| Parties | (7th Cir. 1999) Christina Dobrota and Ovidiu Teodorescu, Petitioners, v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Respondent |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Appeal from an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Nos. A72 214 755 & A72 214 756
Before Eschbach, Flaum, and Kanne, Circuit Judges.
Romanian husband and wife Ovidiu Teodorescu and Christina Dobrota seek review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) that denied Teodorescu's application for political asylum.1 Teodorescu argues that the BIA's failure to consider certain evidence and its reliance on improper considerations require that his case be remanded. He also contends that the evidence compels a finding that his conviction in Romania for the crimes of "damaging public property" and "disturbing the public silence" constituted political persecution. Although we express concern over both the BIA's failure to address specific evidence in its opinion and the unexplained delay in this matter, in light of our highly deferential review standard we affirm the BIA's decision because current conditions in Romania appear to reflect no threat to the petitioners.
Petitioner Ovidiu Teodorescu is thirty-six years old and a native and citizen of Romania. In 1986 Romania was under the leadership of communist president Nicolae Ceaucescu, and Teodorescu, an anti-communist and member of the National Peasant Christian Democratic Party, was pursuing an advanced science degree at Romania's University of Brasov. When Teodorescu was asked to join the Communist Party--a requirement for earning his degree--he refused, and as a result was not allowed to sit for his third-year exams.
In February 1987, unable to complete his degree or find employment, Teodorescu applied for a passport. According to Teodorescu, requests for passports were taken seriously by the Ceaucescu regime. Such requests were noted in the individual's security file, and often resulted in the loss of what Teodorescu calls "normal" rights. Local police summoned Teodorescu to their headquarters, insisting that he withdraw his passport application. When he refused, university police took him into custody, beat him, and attempted to intimidate him into withdrawing his application. According to Teodorescu, a university dean then falsely accused him of damaging school property and forced him to pay a large sum of money to avoid expulsion. He was unable to find a job because the Securitate--a state police force that operated to protect Ceaucescu and his fellow communists--provided his prospective employers with negative background reports.
In November 1987, Teodorescu and a friend went to the university, wrote anti-government slogans on blackboards, and removed a picture of Ceaucescu from a wall in order to demonstrate their support for striking workers. Other students informed on Teodorescu, and he was arrested the next day and charged with "damaging public property and disturbing the public silence." He remained in custody awaiting trial for two months, during which time he claims to have been beaten five or six times. Teodorescu was convicted on January 20, 1988, and sentenced to five years in prison. Six days later, however, President Ceaucescu declared a limited amnesty for short-term, first-time prisoners, and Teodorescu was released on February 23, 1988. After his release, Teodorescu was unable to find employment due to his criminal conviction.
In December 1989 the Ceaucescu regime was overthrown. Teodorescu participated in the revolution, working as a roadblock guard for Ion Iliescu's provisional government until December 29, when he concluded that Iliescu was a "tyrant" much like Ceaucescu and that government personnel from the old regime remained in power. Because of continued political oppression, Teodorescu decided to leave Romania when passports became available in March 1990. Unwilling to wait seven months for an interview at the United States embassy in Bucharest, Teodorescu traveled to Austria instead, where he filed applications for political asylum in both Austria and the United States. After his United States asylum application was denied in November 1991, Teodorescu returned to Romania for a week. His Austrian asylum application was denied in March 1992, and he again returned to Romania for a week to arrange for his permanent departure. Teodorescu obtained a tourist visa to Mexico, but never intended to go there, as he planned instead to file a second application for asylum once his plane landed in New York City. Teodorescu filed his second application when he arrived in New York on March 19, 1992. At a hearing on September 4, 1992, Teodorescu admitted his excludability and requested relief in the form of asylum and withholding of deportation.
Following the hearing, the Immigration Judge (IJ) issued a written decision in which he recounted Teodorescu's testimony as well as a State Department advisory opinion. The advisory opinion, dated October 29, 1992, stated that while human rights received considerably greater protection under Iliescu, many Romanians continued to emigrate due to Romania's poor economy. The opinion also stated that Teodorescu left Romania too soon after Ceaucescu's overthrow to evaluate the nature of the new Iliescu government, and that his affiliation with the National Peasant Democratic Party would not subject him to persecution. While the IJ found Teodorescu's testimony detailed and specific, he faulted Teodorescu for his attempt to circumvent immigration laws by entering the United States on a tourist visa to Mexico and for failing to mention in his pending asylum application that he had previously been denied asylum in the United States. The IJ found Teodorescu's documentary evidence unhelpful as it concerned the general human rights situation in Romania rather than Teodorescu's specific situation. The IJ noted that Teodorescu had suffered no persecution since the overthrow of Ceaucescu, and that neither the denial of readmission to the University of Brasov nor Teodorescu's inability to find work was shown to be politically motivated. He cited Teodorescu's ability to obtain a passport as evidence that he would not face future persecution in Romania. The IJ concluded that Teodorescu had "failed to meet the well-founded fear standard" and ordered that he be excluded and deported.
After a six-year delay that is not explained in the record, the BIA agreed with the IJ's conclusion that his conviction could not be considered political persecution without more evidence that the government intended to punish him for his political beliefs. The BIA also agreed with the IJ that Teodorescu's ability to obtain a passport demonstrated that he had no well-founded fear of returning to Romania.
We review the BIA's decisions in asylum cases under a "highly deferential version of the...
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