[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FILED
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
________________________ ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
MARCH 21, 2006
No. 05-14754 THOMAS K. KAHN
Non-Argument Calendar CLERK
________________________
BIA Nos. A97-208-898 & A97-208-899
GLAY ALEJANDRO APONTE,
LUZ MARINA CASTANO,
Petitioners,
versus
U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL,
Respondents.
________________________
Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
_________________________
(March 21, 2006)
Before CARNES, WILSON and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Glay Alejandro Aponte and his wife, Luz Marina Castano (Petitioners),
petition this Court for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’s (BIA) order
affirming without opinion the Immigration Judge’s (IJ) decision denying them
asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the United Nations Convention
Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
(CAT). Petitioners are native citizens of Venezuela who remained in the United
States beyond their authorized dates and the INS subsequently issued them notices
to appear charging them with removability. They then filed applications for
asylum and withholding of removal based upon their political opinion and
membership in a Venezuelan political group called Venezuela Libre (Free
Venezuela), of which Aponte was a founding member. At their removal hearing,
petitioners stated that they suffered various threats and persecution as a result of
their membership in Free Venezuela including: (1) during a Free Venezuela group
demonstration in October 2001, a man approached the group and told them that
they were a target for harm by the Bolivarian Circles, a reported neighborhood-
based group that serves as liaison between communities and the government, (2)
they were approached by two people who told them to stop what they were doing
or they would kill them, and (3) while Aponte was entering the Central University
of Venezuela, two people got out of a car, chased him and shouted “do something
to him”. Aponte supported his testimony by stating that a co-founder of Free
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Venezuela was kidnapped and beaten, and eventually left for the United States.
They also claim that Castano was fired from her private-sector job as a result of a
government order to fire her. Although the IJ found petitioners’s testimony to be
credible, the IJ found that they failed to carry their burden of proof with respect to
asylum.
The asylum applicant carries the burden of proving asylum eligibility. Al
Najjar v. Ashcroft, 257 F.3d 1262, 1284 (11th Cir. 2001). To qualify for asylum,
the applicant must show past persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on
account of “his or her political opinion (or other statutorily listed factor”). Id. at
1287. An asylum applicant may not show merely that he has a political opinion,
but must show that he was persecuted because of that opinion. INS v. Elias-
Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 483, 112 S. Ct. 812, 816, 117 L. Ed.2d 38 (1992). We
have characterized the “persecution” requirement as an “extreme concept,
requiring more than a few isolated incidents of verbal harassment or intimidation,
and that mere harassment does not amount to persecution.” Sepulveda v. U.S. Att’y
Gen., 401 F.3d 1226, 1231 (11th Cir. 2005) (per curiam) (internal quotations,
brackets, and citation omitted).
Because the BIA affirmed the IJ’s decision without opinion, the IJ’s decision
is the final agency decision subject to review. See Al Najjar, 257 F.3d at 1284.
We find that substantial evidence supports the IJ’s conclusion that petitioners are
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ineligible for asylum or withholding of removal. As the IJ found, the incidents
petitioners offered to support their application, without more, do not establish that
they were subjected to persecution but indicate that they were involved in the
extremely politicized turmoil that existed in Venezuela. In fact, documents
submitted into the record confirm that Venezuela is in a state of political unrest and
that the petitioners stood on one side of a battle that occasionally turned violent.
The record does not compel reversal of the IJ’s determination that the petitioners
were “simply fleeing the polarization . . . encouraged by [President Hugo] Chavez
by his support of [Bolivarian] Circles, who sometime did engage in activities that
were extreme.” As the IJ indicated, “. . . there is no testimony that [Aponte] was
actually physically harmed. He was never arrested. He was never tortured. He
was never precluded from earning a livelihood, since persecution can include a
severe economic deprivation constituting a threat to an individual’s life and
freedom.” (emphasis added). Although there is testimony that Castano was fired
from her job, there is no testimony that either of them were precluded from earning
a livelihood in Venezuela. As the IJ stated, “ . . . there is no economic deprivation
in this case. There is no physical harm in this case. There was no confinement.
There was no torture.” Although the IJ found no evidence of psychological
infliction of harm, there is record evidence that Castano sustained a nervous
breakdown because of these incidents. “But the mere fact that [Castano] found this
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understandably distressing does not indicate that the event itself was an infliction
of psychological torture.” The IJ goes on to state: “There is no question in my
mind that the [Petitioners’s] fear was subjectively genuine, but [they] must also
meet the burden to show that [their] fear was objectively reasonable.” The IJ
correctly determined that there was not “a concerted effort to punish [the
petitioners] for [their] political opinion.”
Substantial evidence also supports the IJ’s determination that the petitioners
had not established a well-founded fear of future persecution if they returned to
Venezuela. Aponte testified that, after he fled Venezuela and remained in the
United States for one month, he returned to Venezuela for two weeks without
incident. Aponte’s mother, who also participated in Free Venezuela public
demonstrations, still remains in Venezuela and has not experienced any threats or
harm from the government or the Bolivarian Circles. Based on this evidence, the
record does not compel reversal of the IJ’s finding that the petitioners do not have
an objectively reasonable fear of future persecution.
Since the petitioners did not show that they suffered past persecution or that
they have a well-founded fear of future persecution based on a protected ground,
they did not establish eligibility for asylum. The petitioners also failed to establish
eligibility for withholding of removal because they did not meet the lower standard
for asylum. See Al Najjar, 257 F.3d at 1292-93. Petitioners did not raise any
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arguments in their brief with regard to their denial of CAT relief and, thus, we find
that they have abandoned that issue. Al Najjar, 257 F.3d at 1283 n.12.
PETITION DENIED.
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