Courts Reporter
SF Chronicle
PHOTO: SF Chron
Bob Egelko reports for the SF Chron:
An immigration judge ordered a gay Nigerian man deported over a minor discrepancy. The Ninth Circuit just reversed in a fiery ruling https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/An-immigration-judge-ordered-a-gay-Nigerian-man-17151459.php
When a local security brigade in Nigeria learned Peter Udo and his boyfriend were seen having sex in a hotel room, they seized and beat the couple for six hours and later told Udo he should be put to death.
Udo’s mother used her family savings to enable him to flee the country and he wound up in California, where an immigration judge rejected his plea for asylum and ordered him deported because his description of the events gave a false name for the hotel where he had been captured. That order has now been firmly rejected by a federal appeals court.
The judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals, which upheld the deportation order, failed to give any “reasoned consideration” to the evidence Udo presented, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Wednesday in a ruling requiring the board to review his claim that he would be tortured if returned to Nigeria.
That evidence included an “excommunication notice,” signed by leaders of the community’s Council of Traditional Rulers, notifying Udo and his family that anyone engaging in homosexual acts is “subjected to public execution” and that his mother and five other relatives were no longer considered citizens of the community.
“Remarkably, the (Board of Immigration Appeals) did not reference the excommunication notice at all” in its ruling that would have returned Udo to Nigeria, Judge M. Margaret McKeown said in the appeals court’s 3-0 decision, which included a copy of the notice.
Udo’s lawyer, David Casarrubias, said the ruling was a victory for asylum seekers.
“The opinion stands for the proposition that although Congress may enact laws that make it harder for asylum seekers to prevail as a result of minor discrepancies in their applications, there are other international laws like the Convention Against Torture that still have teeth,” Casarrubias said.
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Read the rest of Bob’s article at the link.
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And things are just as bad on the other side of the country. Here’s what the 1st Circuit had to say about the latest mis-step from Garland’s “Star Chambers” on a life or death CAT matter:
http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/21-1296P-01A.pdf
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The government does again urge us to construe the BIA as having merely affirmed a finding that it attributed to the IJ
10 For this reason, we need not resolve whether, as Ali contends, the IJ violated 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c)(3) by failing to consider all relevant evidence through the way the IJ treated the evidence from Harper in her testimony and March 2020 declaration that bears on Ali’s “security forces”-related ground for CAT-based deferral of removal.
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regarding whether it was “more likely than not” that Ali would be subject to abuse severe enough to constitute torture rather than a finding that it attributed to the IJ regarding the limited severity of the abuse that Ali had shown that he was likely to suffer. But, as we explained in connection with Ali’s challenge to the BIA’s “other private actors”-related ruling, the IJ did not make that finding either. And, in any event, as we have noted, that is a strained reading of the BIA’s opinion, given that the opinion expressly quotes only from the portion of the relevant regulations that purports to define how severe abuse must be to constitute torture, see 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(2) (“Torture is an extreme form of cruel and inhuman treatment . . . .”), rather than a regulation concerning how “likely” it must be that the noncitizen will be subjected to abuse that is severe enough to constitute torture, see, e.g., id. §§ 1208.16(c)(2), (4).11
Finally, the government contends that we still must affirm the BIA’s ruling because, although Harper described violence, “she did not describe the injuries to the Somalis she
11 To the extent that the government means to argue here, too, that the BIA itself considered the Harper evidence in question because of the portion of the BIA’s opinion in which the BIA states, “after considering the risk of torture from all sources in the aggregate,” we cannot agree. That statement concerns only what the BIA determined that the IJ considered in making the finding about the severity of the abuse that Ali would face that the BIA attributed to the IJ. But, as we have explained, the IJ made no such finding.
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witnessed being beaten or kicked . . . such that the agency could reasonably conclude she provided insufficient detail to show that such abuse by Somali security forces rose to the level of torture or that Ali was at risk that it likely would rise to the level of torture.” But, the IJ did not find that Ali had failed to meet his burden to show that he would likely be tortured by security forces in Somalia on any such basis. Rather, the IJ rejected his “security forces”-related ground for requesting deferral of removal pursuant to the CAT solely because the IJ found that “Harper indicated that the main motivation” of the security forces who “mean to do the respondent harm” is “they are either too busy to protect themselves and therefore they cannot protect other people” or to “harass people based on cultural differences,” such that they would not be acting “with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity” in visiting any abuse on Ali.
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These are complicated cases. Indeed, the 1st Circuit spent 33 pages analyzing this particular case.
By contrast, a supposedly (but, clearly not) “expert” BIA appears to have taken about 5 minutes to “rubber stamp” the clearly defective denials prepared by staff attorneys in these life or death matters! How is this due process or fundamental fairness? No way!
If this were a law school exam, rather than a life or death “court” case, the BIA’s effort probably would have received a “D-“ or an “F.” Yet, Garland finds this ridiculously deficient level of performance acceptable where “only” the rule of law, constitutional due process, and human lives are at stake!
One might expect this from a GOP AG. But, is this really what human rights advocates and progressives elected Biden to churn out?
I say “No.” This is NOT acceptable performance by the BIA! Nor is it acceptable professional performance by Garland, Monaco, Gupta, Prelogar, and the other members of the “Clueless Crew” supposedly in charge of the DOJ!
⚖️Due process for migrants is due process for all in America!
🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!
PWS
05-08-22