Zoarab v. Mukasey (6th Cir. 5/6/08)

McKEAGUE, Gilman, Rogers

The 6th Cir held that where a man insulted a Prince in the UAE, and police tried to throw him in jail as a result (and imprisoned his brother for 6 months), it was not on account of political opinion, but just a business dispute.

Read opinion here: 

Man of Palestinian ancestry living in UAE got into dispute with member of royalty, Prince Mohammed - Petitioner and his brother accused the Prince of being a thief - brother was thrown into jail for 6 months.  Petitioner hid, pursued by security from the Prince.  IJ found no nexus to political opinion; BIA said assuming the nexus element, no past persecution or future persecution fears.

1.  Petitioner was more an angry investor than a political dissident.

   Zoarab was clearly acting as an angry investor, not a political dissident, when he and his cousin-in-law sought to confront the Prince. Asylum is not available to an alien who fears retribution solely over personal matters. Matter of Y-G, 20 I & N Dec. 794, 799 (BIA 1994) (explaining that a love quarrel with a Haitian soldier was a “purely personal matter”); see also Matter of Pierre, 15 I & N Dec. 461, 463 (BIA 1971) (holding that a fear of retribution from a husband, a high political official, was a “strictly personal” matter). Courts have routinely rejected asylum applications grounded in personal disputes because “without a firm footing in one of the five protected bases, asylum law offers no succor.” Marquez, 105 F.3d at 380-81 (concluding that a commercial dispute with a Philippine military officer was “apolitical”); see also Silva v. Ashcroft, 394 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 2005) (rejecting an asylum claim based on the applicant’s whistleblowing against a corrupt employer as “essentially a personal dispute”); Marku v. Ashcroft, 380 F.3d 982, 986 (6th Cir. 2004) (“Evidence must be presented which suggests that the applicant was persecuted on account of or because of the political opinion.” (emphasis in original)); Iliev v. INS, 127 F.3d 638, 642 (7th Cir. 1997) (holding that a dispute with a Bulgarian secret service agent over employment was “personal, not political”); Huaman-Cornelio v. BIA, 979 F.2d 995, 1000 (4th Cir. 1992) (“Even aliens with a ‘well-founded fear’ of persecution supported by concrete facts are not eligible for asylum if those facts indicate only that the alien fears retribution over purely personal matters . . . .”).

2.  Distinguished Grava v. INS, 205 F.3d 1177 (9th Cir. 2000), which would treat whistleblowing as political speech, and creates an "inextricably intertwined" standard for criticizing some govt officials.

   Zoarab contends that the interests of the Prince are inextricably intertwined with the interests of the government, and, therefore, calling the former a thief is akin to calling the government corrupt. As recognized in Marku, the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Grava has no precedential authority in this circuit. 380 F.3d at 988. Nor do Zoarab’s circumstances fit within Grava’s logic. First, there is nothing in the record to suggest that Al-Wafa had any direct involvement in government operations. Any problems associated with the management or administration of the private business venture thus cannot be linked with corruption involving government operations.

   Moreover, there are differences of degree and kind between the public campaign in Grava and Zoarab’s private outburst. In Grava, the asylum applicant’s complaints (a) were public; (b) were widely publicized; (c) targeted widespread government corruption; and (d) resulted in an official investigation and criminal charges. 205 F.3d at 1179-80. In contrast, Zoarab has not presented evidence compelling “the conclusion that [Prince Mohammad] or anyone else knew or should have know that [he] was even opposed to government corruption or had any other political opinion.” Marku, 380 F.3d at 989. The record shows that Prince Mohammad knew that Zoarab opposed the Prince’s management of Al-Wafa. Yet, in his single confrontation with the Prince, Zoarab did not raise any issue of public corruption, nepotism, lack of political rights, or anything that could reasonably be construed as political in nature. Nor was the confrontation part of a “relatively public” campaign. Id. at 988. Even though the U.A.E.’s restrictions on freedoms of speech and press limit a resident’s ability to expose government corruption, Zoarab has been living in the United States for several years. He has offered no letters to the editor, editorials, pamphlets, internet blog entries, or any other evidence of political expression he made against the U.A.E. Simply put, Zoarab has offered no evidence that either before or after the confrontation he led a public (or even private) campaign against the government or individual members of the royalty—he just (quite understandably) wanted his money back. Any persecution resulting from the confrontation was motivated by personal business interests, not political sentiments.

Atty: Cassandra J. Wiemken, Louisville, KY

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