NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 22a0510n.06 Case No. 22-3330 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Dec 08, 2022 DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk ) ALEN HANNA ROFA, ) Petitioner, ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW ) FROM THE UNITED STATES v. ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION ) ) APPEALS MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, ) Respondent. ) OPINION ) Before: LARSEN, DAVIS, and MATHIS, Circuit Judges. MATHIS, Circuit Judge. Alen Hanna Rofa petitions this Court to review a final order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) adopting and affirming the decision of an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denying him deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). For the reasons that follow, we DENY Rofa’s petition for review. I. Rofa is a native and citizen of Iraq who was admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in 1999. Rofa came to the United States at the age of ten, but because his parents could not take care of him and his brothers, they were removed from their parents’ home in 2001 and lived in foster care. Rofa lived with about ten different foster families over the course of three years. At the age of fifteen, Rofa was convicted of second-degree murder in violation of Michigan Penal Code § 750.317 following his participation in a deadly robbery. He was sentenced Case No. 22-3330, Rofa v. Garland to between seventeen and thirty years in prison. After serving sixteen years of his sentence, on June 15, 2021, Rofa was served with a Notice to Appear (“NTA”). The NTA charged him as removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1127(a)(2)(A)(iii) as a noncitizen convicted of an aggravated felony as defined in 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(A) (relating to murder) and 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(F) (relating to a violent crime for which the term of imprisonment is one year or more). Rofa requested deferral from removal under CAT, claiming that he feared he would be tortured and killed if he returned to Iraq. According to Rofa, he identifies as Roman Catholic, specifically as a Chaldean Christian, which would make him vulnerable to torture in Iraq. His faith is shown through his tattoos, which include “numerous carpenter tools covering throughout [his] body with Jesus’ portrait on the back of [his] arm,” as well as a Chaldean symbol to signify that he is a Chaldean Christian. (A.R. 289). Rofa does not speak Arabic, which he claims would raise suspicion and potentially subject him to torture. Additionally, he has no Iraqi identification documents and does not know anyone in Iraq who would vouch for him because all his family and friends are in the United States. In support of his claims, Rofa submitted the declaration of his expert witness, Dr. Tareq A. Ramadan (“Dr. Ramadan”), as well as sixteen articles discussing country conditions in Iraq, the U.S. State Department’s Iraq 2020 Human Rights Report, the Iraq 2020 Religious Freedom Report, and the Iraq 2021 Religious Freedom Report. In opposition, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) …
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