Fourth Circuit Remands Asylum Claim because Agency Failed to Engage with Country Conditions Evidence

The Fourth Circuit has remanded a Honduran woman’s asylum case, finding that the agency’s “wholesale failure to fully consider . . . country-conditions evidence” was an abuse of discretion. The facts of the case were centered on stalking and other serious harm perpetrated by a man that the applicant refused to have sexual relations with. The majority opinion took aim at the dissent’s trivialization of this harm.

“Second, we do not hold—as the dissent’s parade of sister-circuit straw men might suggest—that a noncitizen may rely solely on country-conditions evidence to support a claim of persecution or torture. That is of course not the law, but it is also decidedly not what happened here. In addition to the country-conditions reports, Alfaro-Zelaya presented evidence that she was subjected to violent threats from a man who relentlessly pursued her after she had made her rejection of his advances unmistakably clear. To dismiss this as a ‘fractured personal relationship’ with a lustful man, as the dissent would have it, trivializes conduct that is, in truth, abusive and menacing. At the end of the day, our colleague in dissent may disagree on matters of degree, but the principle remains immutable: no means no. And unless every encounter between a man and a woman in Honduras culminates with the man forcing her into a car at gunpoint, stalking her at her workplace, and threatening to dismember her child should she refuse to have sex with him, the dreaded breach in the floodgates the dissent foresees will remain securely shut.”

The full text of Alfaro-Zelaya v. Bondi can be found here:

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/232069.P.pdf

Seventh Circuit finds BIA Abused its Discretion in Denying Motion to Accept Late Brief

The Seventh Circuit has found that the Board of Immigration Appeals abused its discretion when it denied a motion to accept a late-filed brief filed by a respondent who had only received his record of proceedings days before the briefing deadline. “The Board provided only two reasons for denying Olu‐ wajana’s motion to submit a brief out of time: (1) the second request for an extension of the briefing deadline was denied, and (2) the brief was received 33 days late. Neither basis supports the Board’s decision. First, the mere fact that the Board denied a second extension request cannot justify the rejection of a late brief. The agency’s own regulation prohibits the Board from extending the briefing deadline more than ‘one time per case.’ But the same regulation goes on to say that the Board ‘may consider a brief that has been filed out of time.’ Thus, the Board’s rules envision that a late brief may be accepted even though a second extension of the briefing deadline is barred. It was nonsensical for the Board to deny Oluwajana permissible relief because he was not first granted relief that the Board’s rules prohibit. We will not sustain a decision based on the Board’s interpretation of its rules that causes ‘unreasonable, unfair, and absurd re‐sults.’ Next, and more obviously, the Board clearly erred in finding that Oluwajana submitted his brief 33 days late. After the Board granted the initial request to extend the briefing dead‐ line, the due date was February 24, 2021, not February 3. So, when Oluwajana submitted his brief on March 8, it was only 12 days past due, not the month and more stated in the Board’s order. The Board abuses its discretion when it exercises that discretion based on factual determinations ‘contrary to the detailed evidence in the record.’”

The full text of Oluwajana v. Garland can be found here:

http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2022/D03-09/C:21-1804:J:Manion:aut:T:fnOp:N:2844564:S:0

An amended opinion can be found here:

http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2022/D05-03/C:21-1804:J:Manion:aut:T:aOp:N:2871246:S:0