Townsend v. U.S. Dept. of Justice I.N.S.

• Decision Date: 08 September 1986
• Docket Number: No. 86-4300,86-4300
• Citation: 799 F.2d 179
• Parties: Clarence Benjamin TOWNSEND and Julia Mydea Randall Townsend, Petitioners, v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE, Respondent. Summary Calendar.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 179

799 F.2d 179

Clarence Benjamin TOWNSEND and Julia Mydea Randall Townsend Petitioners, v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE, Respondent.

No. 86-4300

Summary Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Sept. 8, 1986.

Robert A. Shivers, San Antonio, Tex., for petitioners.

Robert L. Bombough, Director, I.N.S., Allen W. Hausman, Asst. Director, Madelyn E. Johnson, Atty., Eloise Rosas, Atty., Robert Kendall, Jr., Atty., Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Richard M. Casillas, Dist. Director, I.N.S., San Antonio, Tex., David H. Lambert, Dist. Director, I.N.S., New Orleans, La., for other interested parties.

Petition for Review of an Order of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Before RUBIN, RANDALL, and HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Petitioners appeal the denial by an immigration judge of their applications for asylum, asserting that the judge erred in finding the male petitioner's testimony in conflict with responses on his original application for asylum and therefore not credible. Because petitioners failed to exhaust their administrative remedies by perfecting an appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, we are without jurisdiction to review the denial of asylum.

I

Petitioners, Benjamin Clarence Townsend and Julia Mydea Randall Townsend, are natives and citizens of Liberia who entered the United States in 1979 as nonimmigrant visitors. In April 1980, the Liberian government was toppled by a coup, and Townsend's father, national chairman of the ruling True Whig party, was executed along with twelve other top officials of the deposed Liberian government "on a sun-baked Atlantic beach ... before a crowd of hundreds of cheering soldiers and thousands of civilians."

In October 1980, Townsend and his fiancee (now wife) submitted applications for asylum to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which were denied by the INS District Director in December 1983. In May 1984, they were charged with deportability under section 241(a)(9) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1251(a)(9). At a hearing before an immigration judge, the Townsends conceded deportability, and renewed their applications for asylum. See 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1158.

At the hearing, the Townsends' original 1980 applications for asylum were admitted into the record. On the forms, in answer to questions which asked whether Townsend had "belong[ed] to any organization(s) which were considered hostile to the interests of your Home Country," and whether he "ever expressed political opinions or acted in a manner which was regarded by the authorities as opposed to the interests of your Home Government," Townsend checked the "no" boxes.

At the hearing itself, Townsend testified that he was an American-Liberian, a descendant of the American blacks who became expatriates in Africa following the abolition of slavery in the United States, and who ruled Liberia through the True Whig party until the 1980 revolution. Townsend testified that the True Whig party is now viewed as an oppressor of the masses, and that anyone considered sympathetic to the party poses a threat to the current regime. He also testified that before leaving Liberia he was chairman of the youth movement of the party, and that because political ideologies are assumed to be family-held, in Liberia he would be expected to follow in his father's political footsteps.

In his decision, the immigration judge stated that "at first blush ... it would appear that what happened to [Townsend's] father and other political leaders of the ruling True Whig Pary [sic] may well show his fear that sooner or later he also will become a victim of persecution is well-founded." However, the immigration judge found Townsend's testimony concerning his political activities and the threat he posed to the present government not credible because it conflicted with answers in his original asylum application that stated he had not belonged to any organizations hostile to the interests of the current Doe regime. ¹ Relying on an advisory opinion of the State Department that expressed the view that "nearly all Liberians could return without fear of persecution," the immigration judge found that Townsend had failed to establish a "well-founded fear" of persecution.

Townsend and his wife appealed the denial of their applications to the Board of Immigration Appeals. On the requisite form under "reasons for this appeal," Townsend stated only that "male respondent has sufficiently established his 'well founded fear of persecution' according to present case law." Although he indicated the desire to file an accompanying brief, none was ever filed, even though an extension of time to do so was granted by the Board. Consequently, the Board summarily dismissed the appeal under 8 C.F.R. Sec. 3.1(d)(1-a), because "the reasons for the appeal have not been meaningfully identified on the Notice of Appeal." Townsend and his wife now appeal the...