Aminata Dieng v. William Barr


RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) File Name: 20a0023p.06 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT AMINATA DIENG; OUSSEYNOU NDIAYE LO, ┐ Petitioners, │ │ > No. 19-3010 v. │ │ │ WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, │ Respondent. │ ┘ Appeal from the Board of Immigration Appeals; Nos. A 088 197 111; A 093 428 046. Decided and Filed: January 22, 2020 Before: BATCHELDER, WHITE, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges. _________________ COUNSEL ON BRIEF: Danielle Beach-Oswald, BEACH-OSWALD IMMIGRATION LAW ASSOCIATES, PC, Washington, D.C., for Petitioners. Jennifer A. Singer, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. BATCHELDER, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which THAPAR, J., joined. WHITE, J. (pp. 11–16), delivered a separate dissenting opinion. _________________ OPINION _________________ ALICE M. BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge. Aminata Dieng and her husband, Ousseynou Ndiaye Lo, petition for review of the order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Board or BIA) denying their motion to reopen their application for asylum. We hold that the Board did not No. 19-3010 Dieng v. Barr Page 2 abuse its discretion when it found that petitioners failed to provide material evidence of changed country conditions in Senegal and therefore DENY the petition. I. Aminata Dieng and Ousseynou Ndiaye Lo are citizens and natives of Senegal. Lo entered the United States in 1997 and although he entered the country on a non-immigrant student visa to enroll at the University of Tennessee, he never attended the university. Dieng used a false passport to join Lo in the United States in 2003. They married in 2005 and Dieng gave birth to a daughter a year later. A. In 2007, Dieng applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), claiming her husband as a derivative applicant.1 Dieng alleged she was a member of the Fulani tribe and that she escaped Senegal because certain relatives attempted to subject her to female genital mutilation (FGM). She asserted that if she were removed to Senegal, she and her daughters2 would be subjected to FGM by her relatives. An Immigration Judge (IJ) held a removal hearing in 2008. Dieng and Lo both testified that Lo is a member of the Wolof tribe, an ethnic group that does not regularly practice FGM. Dieng stated that Senegalese nationals would therefore consider their daughter a member of the Wolof tribe, governed by Wolof traditions. Dieng conceded that if she returned to Senegal, it would be “too late for [her relatives] to have [her] circumcised” because she was married and had two children. AR 501. But Dieng and Lo feared that their daughter might be circumcised if she accompanied her parents to Senegal. Lo testified that if he and his wife returned to Senegal, his brother, an American citizen, could take care of their daughter. The IJ denied petitioners’ request for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT. 1 We fully described the details of petitioners’ asylum proceedings in Dieng v. Holder, 698 F.3d ...

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