Alam v. Holder

10-2752-ag
Alam v. Holder
BIA
Schoppert, IJ
A097 534 609
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
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At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit, held at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan
United States Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, in the City of
New York, on the 13th day of September, two thousand eleven.
PRESENT:
RALPH K. WINTER,
JOSEPH M. McLAUGHLIN,
ROBERT A. KATZMANN,
Circuit Judges.
______________________________________
JEFFRI SETIAWAN ALAM,
Petitioner,
v. 10-2752-ag
NAC
ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., UNITED STATES
ATTORNEY GENERAL,
Respondent.
______________________________________
FOR PETITIONER: H. Raymond Fasano, Madeo & Fasano,
New York, N.Y.
FOR RESPONDENT: Tony West, Assistant Attorney
General; Shelley R. Goad, Assistant
Director; Kristen Giuffreda Chapman,
Trial Attorney, Office of
Immigration Litigation; U.S.
Department of Justice, Washington,
D.C.
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION of this petition for review of a
Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) decision, it is hereby
ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED, that the petition for review
is DENIED.
Jeffri Setiawan Alam, a native and citizen of
Indonesia, seeks review of a June 11, 2010, decision of the
BIA affirming the June 19, 2008, decision of Immigration
Judge (“IJ”) Douglas B. Schoppert, which denied Alam’s
application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief
under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). In re Jeffri
Setiawan Alam, No. A097 534 609 (B.I.A. June 11, 2010),
aff’g No. A097 534 609 (Immigr. Ct. N.Y. City June 19,
2008). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the
underlying facts and procedural history in this case.
Where, as here, the BIA does not adopt the IJ’s opinion
but its decision comments favorably on the IJ’s reasoning,
we review “both the IJ’s and the BIA’s opinions ‘for the
sake of completeness.’” Zaman v. Mukasey, 514 F.3d 233, 237
(2d Cir. 2008) (per curiam) (quoting Wangchuck v. Dep’t of
Homeland Sec., 448 F.3d 524, 528 (2d Cir. 2008)). The
applicable standards of review are well-established. See 8
U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B); see also Corovic v. Mukasey, 519
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F.3d 90, 95 (2d Cir. 2008); Bah v. Mukasey, 529 F.3d 99, 110
(2d Cir. 2008).
As an initial matter, Alam waives any challenge to the
agency’s pretermission of his asylum application and its
determination that he failed to demonstrate past persecution
or his eligibility for CAT relief. See Yueqing Zhang v.
Gonzales, 426 F.3d 540, 541 n.1, 545 n.7 (2d Cir. 2005).
Therefore, the sole issue is whether Alam demonstrated his
eligibility for withholding of removal based on a well-
founded fear of future persecution due to a pattern and
practice of persecution of ethnic Chinese or Christians in
Indonesia. Because, as discussed below, the agency
reasonably found that Alam was unable to show the objective
likelihood of persecution needed to make out an asylum
claim, he is necessarily unable to meet the higher standard
required to succeed on a claim for withholding of removal.
See Paul v. Gonzales, 444 F.3d 148, 156 (2d Cir. 2006);
Gomez v. INS, 947 F.2d 660, 665 (2d Cir. 1991).
Contrary to Alam’s argument, there is no indication
that the agency ignored any material evidence he submitted.
In his decision, the IJ explicitly referenced the materials
Alam had submitted regarding the treatment of Chinese
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Christians in Indonesia, noting that, in fact, some of the
materials undermined Alam’s claim. Similarly, the BIA
specifically referred to one of the documents in evidence,
the United States Department of State 2007 Country Report on
Indonesia. See Jian Hui Shao v. Mukasey, 546 F.3d 138, 169
(2d Cir. 2008) (recognizing that this Court has rejected the
notion that the agency must “expressly parse or refute on
the record each individual argument or piece of evidence
offered by the petitioner” (quoting Zhi Yun Gao v. Mukasey,
508 F.3d 86, 87 (2d Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks
omitted)); see also Xiao Ji Chen v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice,
471 F.3d 315, 337 n.17 (2d Cir. 2006) (presuming that the
agency “has taken into account all of the evidence before
[it], unless the record compellingly suggests otherwise”).
Moreover, the agency reasonably found that the
mistreatment of ethnic Chinese or Christians in Indonesia is
not sufficiently systemic or pervasive to support Alam’s
claim that there is a pattern or practice of persecution of
ethnic Chinese or Christians. See Santoso v. Holder, 580
F.3d 110, 112 (2d Cir. 2009) (per curiam) (affirming an IJ’s
conclusion “that religious violence in Indonesia ‘was
occurring on a very localized basis and was not
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countrywide’” and taking judicial notice of the fact that
Indonesia contains “approximately 6000 inhabited islands”
and that Muslims are not predominant across the country in
rejecting the claim that there is a pattern or practice of
the persecution of Chinese Christians in Indonesia).
Because Alam does not identify any basis for his fear other
than his assertion that there is a pattern or practice of
persecution in Indonesia, and the evidence supports the
agency’s finding that he failed to demonstrate such a
pattern or practice, we find no error in the agency’s denial
of Alam’s application for withholding of removal.
For the foregoing reasons, the petition for review is
DENIED. As we have completed our review, the pending motion
for a stay of removal in this petition is DISMISSED as moot.
FOR THE COURT:
Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk
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