Oriola Bebeci v. Eric Holder, Jr.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
File Name: 14a0917n.06
FILED
No. 14-3156 Dec 10, 2014
DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk
UNITED STATES COURTS OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
ORIOLA BEBECI, )
)
Petitioner, )
)
v. ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW
) FROM THE UNITED STATES
ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., Attorney General, ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION
) APPEALS
Respondent. )
)
)
BEFORE: BOGGS, ROGERS, and STRANCH, Circuit Judges.
ROGERS, Circuit Judge. An immigration judge concluded that Oriola Bebeci’s
testimony was not credible and thus denied her request for withholding of removal. The Board
of Immigration Appeals affirmed. Bebeci appeals the Board’s decision, contending that it erred
in affirming the immigration judge’s adverse credibility determination. Her appeal lacks merit,
however, because she has not shown that a reasonable adjudicator would have been compelled to
credit her testimony.
Bebeci, a native and citizen of Albania, used a fake passport to enter the United States on
June 22, 2000. The Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against her
in 2007. Conceding removability, Bebeci applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and
protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), all based on her claims that Albania’s
No. 14-3156
Bebeci v. Holder
socialist government was persecuting her and her family for their affiliation with the Democratic
Party of Albania.
The immigration judge (IJ) pretermitted as untimely Bebeci’s application for asylum and
denied her requests for withholding of removal and for protection under the CAT because he
found that her testimony was not credible. In his opinion, he identified three aspects of Bebeci’s
testimony that were contradicted by other parts of the record. First, in her initial asylum
statement, Bebeci stated that she had been poisoned in Albania but did not know how or by
whom. In her supplemental asylum statement and testimony, however, Bebeci “provided great
detail relating to the poisoning, where it was done, and the person responsible for the act.”
Second, at her removal hearing, Bebeci and her husband testified that her husband had been
kidnapped in large part because of Bebeci’s political affiliation. During his earlier asylum
proceedings, however, Bebeci’s husband had said “that the criminals who kidnapped and held
him for ransom were motivated solely by monetary gain.” He never suggested in those
proceedings that his wife’s political activities prompted the kidnapping. Third, during her
removal proceedings, Bebeci said she and her family had relocated from Gjirokastre to Tirana
because of politically-motivated threats they received in Gjirokastre. In the course of his asylum
proceedings, however, her husband had cited economic reasons as prompting the move. Because
the record contradicted Bebeci’s testimony on each of these points, the IJ made an adverse
credibility determination. And because he found that Bebeci’s corroborating evidence did not
independently suffice to sustain her burden of proof, the IJ ruled that Bebeci was removable.
Bebeci appealed that ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), which affirmed
the IJ’s pretermission of her asylum application and the denial of her requests for withholding of
removal and protection under the CAT. Bebeci now appeals the BIA’s affirmance of the IJ’s
-2-
No. 14-3156
Bebeci v. Holder
denial of her request for withholding of removal. She does so on a single ground: that the BIA
erred in affirming the IJ’s adverse credibility determination. Bebeci does not contest the BIA’s
decision to affirm the IJ’s pretermission of her asylum application. Accordingly, she has
forfeited that issue on appeal. See Traverse Bay Area Intermediate Sch. Dist. v. Mich. Dep’t of
Educ., 615 F.3d 622, 626 n.1 (6th Cir. 2010).
We will reverse an IJ’s adverse credibility determination only if it is unsupported by
substantial evidence, so that any reasonable fact-finder would be compelled to conclude
otherwise than did the IJ. See INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481 (1992); Yu v. Ashcroft,
364 F.3d 700, 703 (6th Cir. 2004). Bebeci has not shown that the IJ’s credibility findings in her
case are so unreasonable as to meet this standard. The IJ gave three specific bases for his
conclusions, each of which had concrete support in the record.
Bebeci insists that any inconsistencies in her and her husband’s stories merely reflect the
fact that, over the years, she and her husband have come to realize that events they once viewed
as chance occurrences—such as her poisoning and her husband’s kidnapping—were actually part
of a pattern of political persecution. That argument, however, misconceives her burden in this
case. A court may not supplant an IJ’s adverse credibility determination merely because a
petitioner has offered an alternative explanation for inconsistencies between her testimony and
the record. See Arkansas v. Oklahoma, 503 U.S. 91, 113 (1992). Rather, the court must be
convinced that the record “compels” the conclusion that the petitioner’s testimony was credible.
Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. at 481 n.1. Bebeci’s alternative explanation for the inconsistencies
between her testimony and the record only establishes that her testimony may be susceptible of
multiple interpretations, not that a reasonable fact-finder would be compelled to credit her
testimony. See Acheampong v. Keisler, 250 F. App’x 158, 162 (6th Cir. 2007); see also Nejat v.
-3-
No. 14-3156
Bebeci v. Holder
Comm’r of Soc. Sec., 359 F. App’x 574, 575-76 (6th Cir. 2009) (quoting Key v. Callahan,
109 F.3d 270, 273 (6th Cir. 1997)). Accordingly, she has not carried her burden here.
The petition for review is denied.
-4-