FILED United States Court of Appeals PUBLISH Tenth Circuit UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS December 14, 2020 Christopher M. Wolpert FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court _________________________________ JOACHIM O. ADDO, Petitioner, v. No. 18-9560 WILLIAM P. BARR, United States Attorney General, Respondent. _________________________________ Appeal from the Board of Immigration Appeals (Petition for Review) _________________________________ Kari E. Hong, Boston College Law School, Newton, MA on behalf of Petitioner. Scott Stewart, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice Civil Division, Washington, D.C., (Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Greg D. Mack, Senior Litigation Counsel, Terri J. Scadron, Assistant Director, United States Department of Justice, Civil Division, Office of Immigration Litigation, Washington, D.C on the briefs) on behalf of Respondent. _________________________________ Before HARTZ, PHILLIPS, and CARSON, Circuit Judges. _________________________________ HARTZ, Circuit Judge. _________________________________ Petitioner Joachim Addo is a native and citizen of Ghana. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed the denial by an immigration judge (IJ) of his application for asylum, withholding of removal, 1 and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). In the briefs on his petition for review by this court, he challenges the denial of asylum and withholding of removal, arguing that substantial evidence does not support the BIA’s determination that he could successfully avoid future persecution by relocating within Ghana. 2 Exercising jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a), we agree with Petitioner that the decision on his ability to safely relocate is unsupported by substantial evidence. We grant the petition for review and remand to the BIA for further proceedings. I. BACKGROUND A. Factual Background 1 “Congress changed the statutory language of the [Immigration and Nationality Act] to ‘restriction on removal,’ but the corresponding regulations retain the old phrase ‘withholding of removal.’” Uanreroro v. Gonzales, 443 F.3d 1197, 1200 n.1 (10th Cir. 2006) (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3) and 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(b)). Because the parties, the BIA, and the IJ all refer to “withholding of removal,” we will use that term as well. 2 In this court Petitioner has not presented any argument challenging the ruling against him on his CAT claim, so he has waived the issue. See Sawyers v. Norton, 962 F.3d 1270, 1286 (10th Cir. 2020) (“Issues not raised in the opening brief are deemed abandoned or waived . . . [as are] arguments that are inadequately presented . . . .” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Petitioner’s briefs also rely on Pereira v. Sessions, 138 S. Ct. 2105 (2018), to argue that because the notice to appear sent to him by the Department of Homeland Security failed to state the time and date of his first removal hearing, the immigration court had no jurisdiction to order him removed. But after the briefing was completed this court rejected the same arguments in cases brought by other immigration petitioners. See Martinez-Perez v. Barr, 947 F.3d 1273, 1277–79 (10th Cir. 2020); Lopez-Munoz v. Barr, 941 F.3d 1013, 1017–18 (10th Cir. 2019). Petitioner did not pursue the issue at oral argument, nor need we here. ...
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