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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 19–11984
________________________
Agency No. A216-171-928
KAGENDRAN RATNAM,
Petitioner,
versus
U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL,
Respondent.
____________________________
Petition for Review of a Decision of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
____________________________
(October 20, 2020)
Before JORDAN, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denied Petitioner Kagendran
Ratnam’s application for asylum, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(A), and for withholding of
removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c)(2),
and under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), 8 C.F.R. § 208.18(a). The BIA
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specifically affirmed the immigration judge’s adverse credibility determination,
which found that Ratnam’s testimony was not credible and that the documents he
submitted to prove his identity were unreliable. Ratnam petitioned this Court for
review. After briefing and with the benefit of oral argument, we deny the petition.
I.
On March 17, 2018, Ratnam attempted to enter the United States without valid
entry documents in violation of INA § 212(a)(7)(A)(i)(I). 8 U.S.C. §
1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I). In response to removal proceedings, Ratnam filed an application
for asylum and for withholding of removal under the INA and the CAT, and a
hearing was set. Before the hearing, both Ratnam and the government submitted
various documents about Ratnam’s identity, including demographic information,
and about the current conditions for Tamils in Sri Lanka.
According to Ratnam’s testimony at the hearing, he was born in Sri Lanka and
is ethnically Tamil; the Sri Lankan army killed his sister, brother, and father; the Sri
Lankan army beat him while interrogating him on two occasions; and during the
second interrogation, the Sri Lankan army also beat his mother, breaking her hand,
and then detained him, removed one of his toenails, and held a gun to his head. Other
record evidence cast doubt on that testimony. For example, it suggested that
Ratnam’s sister committed suicide; that his brother died in a car accident; and that
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his father died in an accidental drowning. In Ratnam’s asylum application, he did
not mention the toenail removal.
Ratnam also testified about his journey from Sri Lanka to the United States,
in which he asserted he used the passport in the record. At first, he said that he flew
from Sri Lanka to Turkey, from Turkey to Haiti, and then from Haiti to the Bahamas.
In the Bahamas, he got on a boat that took him to the United States. He explained
that he had been locked in a house in Haiti for six months and averred that he had
been in no other countries. However, on cross examination, Ratnam stated that he
was deported from Haiti the same day that he arrived and that he spent time in
Colombia and Panama. He then returned to Haiti, where he stayed for around a week
before flying to the Bahamas. Although Ratnam admitted that he had interacted with
immigration officials in both Panama and Columbia, there were no entry or exit
stamps from either country in his passport.
Further discrepancies emerged. The name typed in Ratnam’s passport differs
from the name written on the back of the passport where his address is listed. Also,
the name in Ratnam’s passport did not match the name that Ratnam’s mother or the
Justice of the Peace used in their separate letters. And it appeared to be spelled
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differently from the name on his driver’s license, though that name was almost
illegible. There was also inconsistency and confusion around his father’s name.
After the hearing, the immigration judge denied Ratnam’s application for
asylum and withholding of removal in a written decision. The immigration judge
found that Ratnam had not proven with credible evidence that he was a Sri Lankan
Tamil and also made a general adverse credibility determination that Ratnam’s
testimony was not credible. The immigration judge explained that because Ratnam’s
testimony was not credible and his “personal documents” were not reliable, the
remaining evidence failed to show his eligibility for asylum or withholding of
removal.
Ratnam timely appealed to the BIA. Ratnam argued that the immigration
judge’s credibility determination was erroneous but did not challenge any specific
inconsistency on which the immigration judge relied in reaching that credibility
determination. The BIA affirmed the immigration judge’s decision, upholding his
credibility determination under a clear-error standard and explaining that without
credible testimony, Ratnam could not meet his burden to show eligibility for asylum
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or withholding of removal. Ratnam timely petitioned this Court for review, and we
granted his motion for a stay of removal.
II.
We review the BIA’s legal conclusions de novo, Perez-Zenteno v. U.S. Att’y
Gen., 913 F.3d 1301, 1306 (11th Cir. 2019), and its factual findings under the
“highly deferential substantial evidence test,” Adefemi v. Ashcroft, 386 F.3d 1022,
1026–27 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc). Under that test, the BIA’s factual findings “are
conclusive unless the record demonstrates that ‘any reasonable adjudicator would be
compelled to conclude the contrary.’” Fahim v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 278 F.3d 1216, 1218
(11th Cir. 2002) (quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B)). When the BIA affirms the
immigration judge’s credibility determination on clear-error review, we assess the
immigration judge’s reasoning. Lingeswaran v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 969 F.3d 1278, 1278
(11th Cir. 2020), see also Chen v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 463 F.3d 1228, 1230 (11th Cir.
2006) (“Insofar as the BIA adopts the [immigration judge]’s reasoning, we review
the [immigration judge]’s decision as well.”). We may only reverse the immigration
judge’s credibility determination if—“view[ing] the record evidence in the light
most favorable to the agency’s decision and draw[ing] all reasonable inferences in
favor of that decision,” Adefemi, 386 F.3d at 1027—the record “not only supports
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[an alternate credibility determination], but compels it,” INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502
U.S. 478, 480 n.1 (1992).
III.
The INA gives the Attorney General discretion to grant asylum to applicants
who qualify as “refugee[s]” under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42). The applicant bears the
burden of showing his refugee status. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i). To establish that
status, the applicant must present credible evidence establishing that “(1) he was
persecuted in the past ‘on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a
particular social group, or political opinion’ (together, ‘protected grounds’), or (2)
he has a ‘well-founded fear’ of persecution in the future ‘on account of’ any of his
protected grounds.” Lingeswaran, 969 F.3d at 1286 (first citing 8 U.S.C. §§
1101(a)(42)(A), 1158(b)(1); and then citing 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(a), (b)).
Ratnam argues that he is eligible for asylum because the Sri Lankan
government persecuted him in the past and would persecute him in the future
because he is an ethnic Sri Lankan Tamil.1 To prove that he is Tamil, he presented
documents and his own testimony. The immigration judge found the documents
unreliable and the testimony not credible. We conclude that the record does not
1
Although the BIA did not reach Ratnam’s arguments about the persecution of ethnic Tamils, it
has considered and rejected similar claims before. See Lingeswaran v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 969 F.3d
1278, 1290-91 (11th Cir. 2020) (“The BIA concluded that [the applicant’s] fear was not
objectively reasonable because he did not show … that the Sri Lankan government routinely
persecutes Tamils.”).
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compel a finding that Ratnam’s testimony was credible nor that the submitted
documents were reliable. Accepting the immigration judge’s findings, we deny the
petition.
We cannot say the immigration judge lacked substantial evidence in finding
the documents unreliable. To prove his identity as a Tamil, Ratnam submitted a
purported Sri Lankan driver’s license and passport, as well as letters purportedly
from his mother, a Justice of the Peace who knew his family, and his divisional
secretary in Sri Lanka. As an important backdrop, the immigration judge found that
“document fraud is prevalent in Sri Lanka, especially in Colombo, which is where
[Ratnam] testified that he spent time” immediately before he left Sri Lanka. And
here, the driver’s license was not authenticated, and the name on it was either spelled
differently than the name on Ratnam’s passport or was illegible. The name typed on
the first two pages of Ratnam’s passport was spelled “Kagendran,” but the name
written on the back of the passport was spelled “Kagandran.” And the name in his
passport also differed from the name used in the letters of Ratnam’s mother and the
Justice of the Peace. Further casting suspicion on the passport, it lacked any travel
stamps from Colombia or Panama, even though Ratnam testified that he flew
through both of those countries on his way to the United States and interacted with
immigration officials in those countries. Finally, the father’s name in the Justice of
the Peace’s letter was different from the name given in Ratnam’s asylum
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applications and during his testimony. Because of inconsistencies internal to the
documents and contradictions between the documents and Ratnam’s testimony, the
immigration judge found that the documents were unreliable. We cannot conclude
that the immigration judge’s finding in this respect is unsupported by substantial
evidence.
We also cannot conclude that the immigration judge lacked substantial
evidence in finding Ratnam’s testimony not credible. Apart from identification
documents, the only other evidence Ratnam presented supporting his claim to be a
Sri Lankan Tamil was his own testimony. An applicant’s testimony “may be
sufficient to sustain the applicant's burden without corroboration, but only if the
applicant satisfies the trier of fact that the applicant's testimony is credible, is
persuasive, and refers to specific facts sufficient to demonstrate that the applicant is
a refugee.” 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(ii). Here, Ratnam’s testimony was riddled with
contradictions and inconsistencies: Ratnam said that the Sri Lankan Army murdered
his father, sister, and brother, but evidence in the record, including death records and
a family-friend’s account, suggests that the sister committed suicide, the brother died
in a vehicle accident, and the father accidentally drowned. At first Ratnam testified
that he traveled only to Haiti, the Bahamas, and Turkey on his way to the United
States, and that he spent six months “locked … in a house” in Haiti, yet during cross
examination he admitted that he had in fact been deported from Haiti the day he
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arrived and had spent time in Colombia and Panama. When Ratnam first testified
about his interaction with the Sri Lankan army, he did not mention that they put a
gun to his head, but later added that detail at his attorney’s prompting. Ratnam first
testified that the Sri Lankan army broke his hand and his mother’s hand but later
admitted that they had not broken his hand.
Ratnam does not deny that those inconsistencies exist. Instead, he argues that
“there can be various reasons … for the absence of entry stamps” on his passport;
that perhaps transliteration errors caused the names to be spelled differently; that the
“common sense answer” about the father’s death is that the “government issued
death certificate” would not say that the Sri Lankan Army had killed him; and that
the translator at Ratnam’s hearing must have made a mistake in interpreting his story
about the army breaking his and his mother’s hands. But, even assuming those
explanations are reasonable, our precedent does not require an immigration judge to
accept reasonable explanations of discrepancies and find that an applicant is
credible. See Shkambi v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 584 F.3d 1041, 1051 (11th Cir. 2009)
(“Although Shkambi offered his fear as an explanation for these omissions and
inconsistencies, that explanation does not compel a conclusion that Shkambi was
credible.”); Chen v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 463 F.3d 1228, 1233 (11th Cir. 2006) (holding
that even if an asylum applicant offers tenable explanations for record-
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inconsistencies, those explanations do not compel reversal of the immigration
judge’s adverse credibility determination).
Because the record as a whole does not compel an alternative credibility
finding, we must accept the immigration judge’s credibility determination, which
leaves us with no credible evidence that Ratnam is a Sri Lankan Tamil. All of
Ratnam’s arguments that he was, or will be, persecuted because of a statutorily
protected ground require him to be Tamil. 2 Without credible evidence that he is
Tamil, Ratnam cannot meet his burden to establish eligibility for asylum or
withholding of removal. See 8 C.F.R. §§ 1208.13(a), 1208.16(b); see also Forgue v.
U.S. Att’y Gen., 401 F.3d 1282, 1288 (11th Cir. 2005) (“Because Forgue has failed
to establish a claim of asylum on the merits, he necessarily fails to establish
eligibility for withholding of removal or protection under CAT.” (citation omitted)).
IV.
Substantial evidence supports the BIA and immigration judge’s adverse
credibility determination, which forecloses Ratnam’s claims for asylum and
withholding of removal. Ratnam’s petition for review is DENIED.
2
Ratnam also argues that he has a fear of persecution upon removal because he is a failed asylum
seeker. But he concedes that this additional claim must be considered “in conjunction with” his
Tamil ethnicity and argues that the BIA erred in considering his failed-asylum-seeker argument
independently of his Tamil ethnicity. Because of the immigration judge’s credibility finding about
Ratnam’s Tamil ethnicity, Ratnam’s argument that he is likely to be persecuted as a failed asylum
seeker also fails.
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