United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 15-2563
MARISOL QUEZADA-CARABALLO,
Petitioner,
v.
LORETTA E. LYNCH,
Attorney General of the United States,
Respondent.
PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER
OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS
Before
Howard, Chief Judge,
Lynch and Kayatta, Circuit Judges.
Randy Olen on brief for petitioner.
Enitan O. Otunla, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration
Litigation, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Benjamin
C. Mizer, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and John W.
Blakeley, Assistant Director, on brief for respondent.
October 31, 2016
LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Marisol Quezada-Caraballo, a
native and citizen of the Dominican Republic, petitions for review
of the Board of Immigration Appeals' ("BIA") decision affirming an
Immigration Judge's ("IJ") denial of her application for a good-
faith-marriage waiver of the joint-filing requirement for a
Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence ("Form I-751 waiver").
See 8 U.S.C. § 1186a(c)(4)(B). We deny the petition.
I.
As she admitted to the IJ, Quezada-Caraballo made a
series of misrepresentations to advance her Form I-751 waiver
application. During two interviews with United States Citizenship
and Immigration Services ("USCIS"), she claimed that her ex-
husband, Jose Garay, lived with her in Rhode Island when, in fact,
she and Garay had separated before she moved from Puerto Rico to
the continental United States, and he had never lived with her in
Rhode Island. Quezada-Caraballo also admitted that she had
submitted fabricated documents, including a Verizon bill
purportedly issued to her and Garay, and other mail apparently
sent to Garay at their joint residence in Rhode Island. She had
done so in order to make it appear as if Garay lived with her in
Rhode Island. And she admitted to submitting several misleading
affidavits, including one from Garay.
The IJ denied Quezada-Caraballo's application for review
of USCIS's denial of her Form I-751 waiver application and granted
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Quezada-Caraballo voluntary departure. After taking into account
the record evidence, including testimony by Quezada-Caraballo and
two others who spoke on her behalf at the hearing, the IJ found
that Quezada-Caraballo's numerous misrepresentations to USCIS
undermined the credibility of her testimony.
The BIA affirmed. It found that the IJ was warranted in
drawing a "falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus" (false in one thing,
false in everything) inference from Quezada-Caraballo's
misrepresentations. And it agreed with the IJ that, in light of
Quezada-Caraballo's misrepresentations, the record evidence as a
whole was insufficient to meet her burden to establish by a
preponderance of the evidence that she had entered into a good-
faith marriage.
II.
Under the substantial evidence standard, we must uphold
the BIA's decision unless Quezada-Caraballo can show that "the
evidence not only supports [reversal], but compels it." INS v.
Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481 n.1 (1992). Quezada-Caraballo
contends that the record as a whole establishes that her marriage
to Garay was in good faith; that the IJ and BIA erroneously focused
solely on her admitted misrepresentations and failed to consider
the countervailing evidence; and that the BIA's approval of the
IJ's falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus inference was unreasonable
under the circumstances of her case.
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We disagree. This court has already held that "the REAL
ID Act [gives an] IJ discretion to draw [a] 'falsus in uno, falsus
in omnibus'" inference. Wen Feng Liu v. Holder, 714 F.3d 56, 61
(1st Cir. 2013). The relationship between the falsehoods and the
undermined claim here is stronger than it was in Wen Feng Liu.
Quezada-Caraballo's misrepresentations about the duration and
scope of her cohabitation with Garay were directly material to her
claim that she had married him in good faith. Further, Quezada-
Caraballo was not dishonest about just one thing -- she made and
relied on repeated misrepresentations. Consequently, the IJ was
permitted to discredit Quezada-Caraballo's testimony.
The BIA, like the IJ, considered the entire record. It
agreed with the IJ that, in light of Quezada-Caraballo's
misrepresentations, the record was insufficient to meet the burden
of proof needed to establish a good-faith marriage. That
conclusion is well supported by our precedent. This case is not
like Cho v. Gonzales, 404 F.3d 96, 103 (1st Cir. 2005), in which
we granted a petition for review and remanded to the BIA because
the petitioner had submitted a jointly held health insurance
policy, tax returns, bank accounts, automobile financing
agreements, a credit card, and health and telephone records to
corroborate her good-faith-marriage claim. Quezada-Caraballo's
evidentiary showing, including the testimony of Garay's ex-wife
and son, falls far short of that. See Valdez v. Lynch, 813 F.3d
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407, 411–13 (1st Cir. 2016) (holding that petitioner's general
testimony as to validity of his marriage and his submission of tax
returns that provided little evidence of commingled assets were
insufficient to demonstrate good-faith marriage).
Nothing Quezada-Caraballo argues on appeal compels us to
reverse the BIA's reasonable decision.
III.
The petition is denied.
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