Tarraf v. Gonzales

• Decision Date: 30 July 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-2835.,06-2835.
• Citation: 495 F.3d 525
• Parties: Ahmad J. TARRAF, Petitioner, v. Alberto R. GONZALES, United States Attorney General, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

495 F.3d 525

Ahmad J. TARRAF, Petitioner, v. Alberto R. GONZALES, United States Attorney General, Respondent.

No. 06-2835.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 1, 2007.

Decided July 30, 2007.

Abdullah Salah (argued), Salah & Associates, Hickory Hills, IL, for Petitioner.

Karen Lundgren, Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Chief Counsel, Chicago, IL, Benjamin J. Zeitlin (argued), Department of Justice, Civil Division, Immigration Litigation, Washington, DC, for Respondent.

Before RIPPLE, MANION and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge.

On February 18, 2005, an Immigration Judge ("IJ") denied Ahmad Tarraf's applications for asylum, withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture ("CAT") and ordered him removed from the United States. Mr. Tarraf appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA" or "Board"), which adopted and affirmed the decision of the IJ on June 1, 2006. Mr. Tarraf filed a petition for review in this court on July 5, 2006. For the reasons stated in this opinion, we deny the petition for review.

I BACKGROUND

A. Facts and Immigration Court Proceedings

Mr. Tarraf is a native and citizen of Lebanon. Since entering the United States unlawfully through Mexico in 2000, Mr. Tarraf has married a United States citizen; they have two daughters, also United States citizens.¹ After a traffic stop in October 2001, Mr. Tarraf was brought to the attention of immigration authorities, was arrested and placed in removal proceedings. Before the IJ, he conceded removability on the basis of his unlawful presence, but requested asylum, withholding of removal and CAT relief.

According to his testimony at the removal hearing, Mr. Tarraf fears persecution by Hezbollah, a group the State Department Reports describe as an "Iranian-backed Shi'a Muslim faction" that "undermine[s]" the central government of Lebanon.² A.R. at 173. He claims that Hezbollah both has accused him of being an Israeli collaborator or spy and has recruited him aggressively to join its cause. Mr Tarraf contends that, because neither he nor his family has acquiesced to these demands, they have been repeated targets of threats and violence committed by Hezbollah.

Prior to his merits hearing, Mr. Tarraf submitted an asylum application with the assistance of counsel. He attached limited supporting documents, including a brief statement that provided certain details regarding his claim as well as a letter from his older brother that purported to corroborate Mr. Tarraf's history with Hezbollah.

At his removal hearing, Mr. Tarraf testified, in support of his requests for relief, about three main incidents. First, he stated that his brother, Mohsen Tarraf, was killed by Hezbollah in 1990. The record included a copy of Mohsen's death certificate written in Arabic, but the translation included in the record only states his name, village and date of death, without any information about the cause. Mr. Tarraf's testimony itself provided few other details. He said only that his brother drove a taxi and that Hezbollah tried to "send stuff with him"; he testified both that Hezbollah did not pay Mohsen and that Mohsen "declined to take stuff from them and then they killed him." A.R. at 109. According to Mr. Tarraf, because of his brother's death, he left Lebanon in fear of Hezbollah. See id. at 96. He began living and working primarily in Côte d'Ivoire, but returned to Lebanon for periods of one to two months almost every year thereafter until 2000.³

According to Mr. Tarraf, the second incident occurred on his return home to Lebanon in 1994. He testified that he went to visit his ill mother in her home in Maaroub, an hour and a half outside of Beirut. He stated that he traveled to the house at night, and, while he was there, Hezbollah came looking for him. They came to the door and spoke to his father, asking whether Ahmad was home and whether they could speak with him. Mr. Tarraf's father apparently sent them away, and Mr. Tarraf waited in the home for two hours before attempting to leave. As he headed for his car, they called to him, and he tried to run away. He stated that they threw a grenade at him and that they shot him in the leg and in the back. Afterwards, he was taken to a Hezbollah clinic where he stayed for three days. When he was asked why Hezbollah had targeted him, he told the court, "they want me to work for them and I used to travel a lot and they used to—they say I'm [a] spy for Israel." Id. at 102. Mr. Tarraf stated that he told them that he agreed to work for them and was allowed to leave the hospital, but that he immediately headed for Beirut where he left again for Africa.

Mr. Tarraf also stated that, after this incident, he continued to travel back and forth between Côte d'Ivoire and Lebanon. Although he was not sure whether he had returned to Lebanon in 1995, he did return in 1996 to become engaged and again in 1997 around the time of his marriage. He told the court that, on this trip, "[Hezbollah] knew that [he] was there" and, therefore, he "ran away again" to Côte d'Ivoire. Id. at 104. Mr. Tarraf claimed that Hezbollah was "looking for [him] because they wanted [him] to work for them" and that people in his neighborhood would inform Hezbollah on each of his returns to Lebanon. Id. at 105. On these return trips, he stayed with his wife's family or with friends in order to avoid Hezbollah.

Mr. Tarraf stayed in Côte d'Ivoire until turmoil within that country forced his return to Lebanon in 1998 for a period of five months; thereafter, he went briefly to France, and returned again to Lebanon. In November 1998, Mr. Tarraf traveled to Syria and then to Mexico, where he attempted to enter the United States. He claims that Mexican officials would not allow his travel to the United States from Mexico City, and so again he returned to Lebanon and remained there for a year and a half.

Finally, Mr. Tarraf testified about an incident that occurred just before his actual arrival in the United States. He claimed that, in April of 2000, Hezbollah again came looking for him. He stated that he moved from house to house while in Lebanon, but that Hezbollah members found him and arrested him at a friend's house. He stated that they held him for one month until he agreed to work with them.⁴ Upon prodding from the IJ about what occurred during this period of detention, he testified that Hezbollah "beat [him] up so bad everywhere." Id. at 111. He escaped and traveled to Mexico; from there he entered the United States. Mr. Tarraf stated that, since he had arrived in the United States, his apartment in Lebanon had been confiscated by Hezbollah and his 21 year-old nephew had been killed by them. Id. at 113-15. He testified that Hezbollah continued to look for him, asking even his seven year-old daughter if she knew where he was. He stated that, if he was returned, he feared that Hezbollah was "[j]ust going to torture [him] and torture [him]." Id. at 118.

The IJ attempted to clarify with Mr. Tarraf why he believed that Hezbollah had targeted him for the intense recruiting he had described. In response, Mr. Tarraf stated, "[t]hey wanted me to execute some operation for them, could be in Israel or anywhere outside Lebanon and they said they pay me any amount of money but I declined." Id. at 109. The IJ pressed Mr. Tarraf on why Hezbollah wanted him in particular, and he stated, "I didn't have any training of any kind or anything. . . . I used to travel a lot. It was easier for me to get visas wherever I want to go." Id. at 110. The IJ asked why Hezbollah would assault him as part of an attempt to recruit him, and Mr. Tarraf responded, "they just keep beating me up until I agree." Id. at 113.

When Mr. Tarraf had finished his substantive testimony, the IJ confronted him with inconsistencies between his live testimony and the statements in his asylum application that had been prepared with the assistance of the same attorney who represented him at the hearing. See id. at 119. Specifically, the IJ noted that Mr. Tarraf's written statement said that he had been captured by Hezbollah in 2000 while at his parents' house, although at his hearing he repeatedly had testified that he was at his friend's house. The IJ also noted that the written statement indicated that he had been held for three days, not one month, as Mr. Tarraf had maintained in court. Finally, the IJ questioned him regarding the varying descriptions of his detention: In his written statement, Mr. Tarraf indicated that Hezbollah had questioned and pressured him during this time, but he made no mention of any physical abuse, although at his hearing Mr. Tarraf testified several times that he was repeatedly beaten and tortured. Mr. Tarraf stated that perhaps translation difficulties troubled the earlier statement, but that he stood behind his in-court testimony relating to his detention in 2000. See id. at 119. The IJ noted that his attorney speaks Arabic and seemed to question whether that explanation was plausible.

B. The Decision of the IJ

The IJ denied Mr. Tarraf's requests for asylum, withholding of removal and CAT relief.

First, with respect to his asylum claim, he noted that Mr. Tarraf had filed his application more than one year after entering the country and had not demonstrated changed or exceptional circumstances to overcome the statutory bar in 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(B).

Turning to his claim for withholding of removal, the IJ reviewed Mr. Tarraf's in-court testimony. He noted the claims of his brother's murder in 1990 and of the 1994 incident in which Mr. Tarraf was shot, but continued, "despite his refusal to support the Hezbollah, he continued to return to Lebanon every year without great difficulty," including one stretch of more than a year shortly before leaving for the United States in 2000. A.R. at 50. The IJ noted that his final departure followed, according to Mr. Tarraf, an arrest and detention...