As Benito had not raised the issue of the IJ failing to explicitly state a finding on past persecution before the BIA, the Court held that it lacked jurisdiction to reviewed this claim since administrative remedies had not been exhausted. However, the Court did have jurisdiction to consider his withholding claim as a whole and found that given the IJ’s findings, that the phone threats and graphic emails did not establish a probability of future persecution, that Benito had not been [physically harmed and that Benito’s family continues to live in Indonesia and practice Christianity without being harmed, the Court found that a finding of no past or future persecution was proper. Furthermore, the Court held that the BIA properly concluded that the two country conditions articles Benito submitted did not establish a sufficient change in country conditions to warrant a remand.
Bebri, an Albanian national, immediately applied for asylum in the United States upon his 2001 entrance due a violent attack he suffered due to his activities as an officer of the Democratic Party of Albania. However, he told 3 different accounts of this attach, the “linchpin incident”, to the asylum officer, on his asylum application and in his IJ testimony. Therefore, the IJ made an adverse credibility finding due to the vast discrepancies in each of the narratives of this incident and due to the lack of detail that Bebri provided about his political participation. The Court agreed with the IJ, stating that the discrepancies were not merely minor differences in dates and time but instead went to the heart of the matter.
El-Labaki v. Mukasey (10/1/08)Toruella, Howard, DELGADO-COLON
Finding that Petitioner, El-Labaki, failed to demonstrate past or future persecution based on his Christian beliefs and practices, the Court upheld the IJ and BIA denials of withholding and CAT. The Court found that as El-Labaki had been able to travel between Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and that the occasional short detentions he experience in re-entering Lebanon did not amount to past persecution. On one such occasion El-Labaki stated that when authorities saw his national identification card which stated that he is a Christian, he was taken to a police station and beaten. However, the Court concluded that even if such an incident did occur, this incident would not have amounted to past persecution. Additionally, as El-Labaki’s wife and children are practicing Christians living unharmed in Lebanon, the Court agreed with the IJ that El-Labaki’s main motives in coming to the United States were economic rather than political reasons or fear of persecution.
Petitioner, Singh, an asylum applicant from India, claiming past persecution and fear of future persecution by the Babba Khalsa, attempted to argue that his membership in his nuclear family constituted a particular social group for asylum purposes. However, the Court rejected this argument, stating that even if Singh’s father was persecuted on account of his political activities, Singh failed to provide sufficient evidence to show that he and the rest of his family were targeted on account of his father’s political views. A second attack on Singh after his father passed away, was seen as being motivated primarily by economic reasons. While the Court had initially remanded the case back to the BIA for it to address the implications of the REAL ID Act of 2005, the Court now held that since there was no nexus shown, there was no need to make a determination as to the corroboration issue.
The First Circuit upheld the IJ and BIA’s findings that the discrepancies and inconstancies in Prosper’s testimony were material to her claims of relief, therefore, supporting an adverse credibility finings. Most troubling to the court were the inconsistencies in Prosper’s testimony regarding the Mobilization for National Development (MDN) political party, especially as she was not aware what MDN stood for and was inconsistent in her responses about when she became an active MDN member. As the Court agreed with the adverse credibility finding, the Court denied the PFR and affirmed the IJ and BIA denials of asylum, withholding and CAT.
First Circuit 
