Immigration – Persecution – Isolated attack

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Where the petitioner, a Honduran national, was the victim of a single, isolated criminal attack in Honduras and then remained there unharmed for six months, he has not demonstrated past persecution, nor a well-founded fear of future persecution.

Accordingly, the order denying his application for asylum, withholding of removal and protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT) must be upheld.

“ … To begin, the petitioner asserts that neither the IJ nor the BIA appropriately analyzed whether he had experienced past persecution. This assertion is belied by the record.

“For her part, the IJ conducted a thorough analysis regarding the existence vel non of past persecution. After a detailed discussion, the IJ found that the petitioner had fallen victim to a single, isolated criminal attack which failed to come close to the level of persecution. The BIA was equally thorough; it affirmed the IJ’s determination that no persecution had been established, citing a trio of cases in which this court upheld decisions of the BIA concluding that isolated incidents did not equate to persecution. The BIA then concluded that the solitary attack on the petitioner did not sink to the level of persecution.

“The petitioner next complains about the agency’s finding that he failed to demonstrate a well-founded fear of future persecution. This plaint fares no better. …

“ … Simply put, the record does not compel a contrary conclusion but, rather, is fully consistent with the agency’s determination that the petitioner’s professed fear of future persecution was not objectively reasonable.

“At the center of the petitioner’s claimed fear of future persecution is the attack that he recounted. But the agency’s finding that the attack did not evince persecution was supportable. The record indicates, at most, a solitary, quite possibly random, incident — the cause of which is unknown. The petitioner, though understandably frightened, escaped unscathed. We have regularly upheld determinations by the BIA that this sort of sporadic, isolated event does not — in the absence of evidence of systematic targeting or the like — constitute persecution. … Indeed, we have upheld the BIA’s plausible application of similar reasoning even where more than one episode is alleged to have occurred. …

“The petitioner’s hand is not strengthened by his allusions to threatening telephone calls to his father and the assassination of his godfather. He has offered only vague and general descriptions of these events, without any concrete indication of what brought them about. To nail down the point, he has in no way linked these incidents to the attack about which he complains. Seen in this light, the purported relevance of these events is purely speculative.

“The agency’s conclusion that the petitioner’s fear of persecution is not objectively reasonable gains additional support from other aspects of the record. For one thing, the petitioner remained unharmed in Honduras for roughly six months after the attack. … For another thing, despite the petitioner’s assertion that the persecution he suffered was based on kinship, his family members have continued to dwell in Honduras unharmed. …

“To be sure, the general materials submitted by the petitioner to the agency (such as news articles and country conditions reports) paint a disturbing picture of endemic violence and corruption in Honduras. But on this sparse record, such generalized evidence is not sufficient to compel a finding of a well-founded fear of persecution. …

“The short of it is that the BIA was on supportable ground in viewing the petitioner’s attack as a solitary event that was unpleasant and harassing but, nevertheless, did not amount to persecution. … Here, … the attack in question ‘is too frail a lance to unhorse the BIA’s fact-based finding that nothing amounting to persecution occurred.’ That ends this aspect of the matter.

“The petitioner’s remaining claims are readily dispatched. … Where, as here, an alien falls short of showing persecution sufficient to satisfy the more easily attainable standard required for an asylum claim, a counterpart claim for withholding of removal necessarily fails. …

“This leaves only the petitioner’s claim for protection under the [United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT)]. That claim has not been preserved: the petitioner’s brief in this court is devoid of any developed argumentation directed to it. Thus, any such claim has been waived. …

“We need go no further. For the reasons elucidated above, we deny the petition for judicial review.”

Villafranca v. Lynch (Lawyers Weekly No. 01-214-15) (11 pages) (Selya, J.) (1st Circuit) Kevin MacMurray on brief for the petitioner; Joyce R. Branda, Jennifer Williams and Yedidya Cohen on brief for the respondent (Docket No. 14-1881) (Aug. 5, 2015).

Click here for the full-text opinion.