NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 20a0454n.06 Case No. 19-4033 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Aug 04, 2020 DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk JUAN CARLOS ROGEL-RODRIGUEZ, ) ) Petitioner, ) ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW v. ) FROM THE UNITED STATES ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, ) APPEALS ) Respondent. ) ) BEFORE: GIBBONS, GRIFFIN, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges. THAPAR, Circuit Judge. Credibility determinations are central to our system of immigration enforcement. Here, an Immigration Judge found Juan Carlos Rogel-Rodriguez not credible and thus denied his request for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. Because substantial evidence supports that finding, we deny the petition for review. I. Rogel-Rodriguez illegally entered the United States in the summer of 2018. After he was apprehended, he told a border patrol officer that he left El Salvador “to come work” in the United States. A.R. 1295. He also said that he did not believe he would be harmed if he returned to El Salvador. Later that summer, Rogel-Rodriguez applied for asylum and in the process offered a new story about why he had left El Salvador. He said that earlier that spring he had seen what looked Case No. 19-4033, Rogel-Rodriguez v. Barr like a drug deal go down between three police officers and gang members from MS-13. A month later, the three police officers purportedly stopped him while he was walking home, punched him in the stomach, and threatened to kill him and his family if he told “anybody about what [he] saw.” A.R. 300. Two weeks after that, the police officers allegedly stopped him again, knocked him to the ground, pointed a gun at his head, and told him that they would kill him. During this incident, he says, the officers also broke his national identification card. According to Rogel-Rodriguez, he then rested for two weeks, obtained a new identification card, and left El Salvador the next day. After a hearing, an Immigration Judge found Rogel-Rodriguez’s new story not credible and denied his application for asylum, withholding of removal, and Convention Against Torture relief. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed, and this petition for review followed. II. Rogel-Rodriguez challenges his immigration proceedings on two grounds: (1) that the Immigration Judge wrongly found him not credible, and (2) that he was entitled to relief under the Convention Against Torture. Neither challenge has merit. A. Start with credibility. An adverse credibility determination is often “fatal to claims for asylum and relief from removal, preventing such claims from being considered on their merits.” Slyusar v. Holder, 740 F.3d 1068, 1072 (6th Cir. 2014). Credibility determinations are findings of fact reviewed under the substantial evidence standard. Marikasi v. Lynch, 840 F.3d 281, 287 (6th Cir. 2016). Thus, we must uphold such findings “unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to make a contrary conclusion.” Slyusar, 740 F.3d at 1073.1 1 In his argument headings, Rogel-Rodriguez frames his credibility challenge as arising under the ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals