United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
Nos. 05-2893, 07-1798
NASREDDINE CHIKKEUR, BAGHDADIA MEGUENINE,
Petitioners,
v.
MICHAEL B. MUKASEY, ATTORNEY GENERAL,*
Respondent.
ON PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE
BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS
Before
Torruella, Lynch and Lipez,
Circuit Judges.
Jeanette Kain, Maureen O'Sullivan, and Kaplan, O'Sullivan &
Friedman on brief for petitioners.
Hillel R. Smith, Trial Attorney, Peter D. Keisler, Assistant
Attorney General, and Terri J. Scadron, Assistant Director,
Office of Immigration Litigation, U.S. Department of Justice, on
brief for respondent.
January 31, 2008
*
Pursuant to Fed. R. App. P. 43(c)(2), Attorney General
Michael B. Mukasey has been substituted for former Attorney General
Alberto R. Gonzales as the respondent herein.
LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Nasreddine Chikkeur and his wife,
Baghdadia Meguenine, are both natives and citizens of Algeria. The
Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed without opinion the
decision of an Immigration Judge (IJ) denying petitioners'
application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under
the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The BIA denied a later
petition to reopen. Both denials are the subject of this petition
for review.1
Petitioners' asylum application relies on an incident of
extortion that occurred in May 1996, while Chikkeur operated a
successful retail business in his native city of Oran. Two men
claiming to belong to the FIS, a radical Islamist group, visited
Chikkeur's shop, shoved him to the ground, and took cash from the
store's register. The men demanded that Chikkeur hand over a much
more substantial sum of money within thirty days. Over the next
three weeks, Chikkeur's wife received three phone calls from men
threatening to kill Chikkeur and his family if he did not pay the
FIS. Chikkeur resolved not to pay the FIS, and decided instead to
leave Algeria. He closed his shop, left his home to his mother and
brother to sell, and departed for the United States with his wife.
1
Chikkeur was the lead applicant for relief. Consistent
with the practice of the IJ, the BIA, and the parties themselves,
we treat Chikkeur and Meguenine's collective claims by focusing on
Chikkeur himself. See Estrada-Canales v. Gonzales, 437 F.3d 208,
210 (1st Cir. 2006).
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Petitioners entered the United States on June 4, 1996, on
a six-month sightseeing visa. Removal proceedings against Chikkeur
commenced on May 22, 1998. After an initial decision by an IJ was
remanded by the BIA for insufficient findings regarding credibility
and past persecution, a new IJ reheard petitioners' testimony and
issued a written decision denying asylum, withholding of removal,
and CAT relief on July 29, 2004. Voluntary removal was granted.
The BIA summarily affirmed on November 29, 2005.
Petitioners filed a motion with the BIA to reopen their
case on February 27, 2006. The motion was based on Chikkeur's
claim that he had recently learned that Islamists had burned down
his old store and killed his brother. These events, according to
Chikkeur, supported his claims of a well-founded fear of
persecution should he return to Algeria. The BIA denied the motion
to reopen on May 7, 2007.
Because petitioners did not challenge the IJ's initial
denial of withholding of removal or CAT relief before the BIA,
those issues are not before this court. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1);
Silva v. Gonzales, 463 F.3d 68, 72 (1st Cir. 2006). Here, we only
consider petitioners' claim for asylum.
This court may not grant the petition for review unless
the evidence compels the conclusion, contrary to the IJ's findings,
that petitioner met his burden of proving he suffered past
persecution or has a well-founded fear of future persecution based
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on one of five enumerated grounds. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A)
(defining "refugee" as one who suffers persecution on the basis of
race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social
group, or political opinion); see also Fesseha v. Ashcroft, 333
F.3d 13, 18 (1st Cir. 2003) (substantial evidence standard).
The IJ supportably found, on the record, that Chikkeur
"failed to demonstrate the requisite link between the extortion and
his (imputed) political opinion or membership in a particular
social group." See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). Chikkeur argues
that while the attack on his store began as extortion for purely
economic gain, the FIS members interpreted Chikkeur's refusal to
comply with their demands as political opposition, which resulted
in a politically motivated escalation of their demands. However,
nothing in the record compels the conclusion that Chikkeur was
targeted for anything other than economic motives. Cf. Hincapie v.
Gonzales, 494 F.3d 213, 219-20 (1st Cir. 2007) (distinguishing
between "a desire to extort money" and "any motive connected to a
statutorily protected ground"). No issue of law is presented by
this case. The IJ's finding is supported by substantial evidence.
Likewise, the motion to reopen does not present any basis
to conclude that Chikkeur's brother was killed "on account of a
protected ground, rather [than a] refusal to give in to [the FIS's]
extortion demands." A motion to reopen must be denied unless
petitioners' new evidence establishes a prima facie case for the
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underlying substantive relief. Mabikas v. INS, 358 F.3d 145, 148
(1st Cir. 2004). It was within the discretion of the BIA to deny
the motion. Cf. id.
The petition for review as to both issues is denied.
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