RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) File Name: 20a0043p.06 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT ARIEL LUNA-ROMERO, ┐ Petitioner, │ │ > No. 19-3151 v. │ │ │ WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, │ Respondent. │ ┘ On Petition for Review from the Board of Immigration Appeals; No. A 205 486 033. Decided and Filed: February 11, 2020 Before: BATCHELDER, LARSEN, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges. _________________ COUNSEL ON BRIEF: Scott E. Bratton, MARGARET WONG & ASSOCIATES LLC, Cleveland, Ohio, for Petitioner. Annette M. Wietecha, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. _________________ OPINION _________________ MURPHY, Circuit Judge. Ariel Luna-Romero, a citizen of Argentina, entered the United States illegally. When the government sought to remove him, he applied for asylum, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b), withholding of removal, id. § 1231(b)(3)(A), and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c). The Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed his appeal from the denial of these applications. We deny his petition for review. No. 19-3151 Luna v. Barr Page 2 Luna asserts three well-known claims. Immigrants may seek asylum if they are “refugees”: those who cannot return to their home country “because of persecution or a well- founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(42)(A), 1158(b)(1)(A). Immigrants may also seek the withholding of their removal to a country if their “life or freedom would be threatened in that country because of [their] race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Id. § 1231(b)(3)(A). And they may seek relief under the Convention Against Torture if they will be “tortured” in the country to which they will be removed. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c)(2). Luna alleges that he would suffer harm in Argentina because of his race (he is indigenous) and his political opinion (he has advocated for indigenous rights). To support this claim at his immigration hearing, he testified about past abuses in Argentina. He noted, among other things, that during the 1990s he became the spokesperson for an indigenous group and organized about ten protests on its behalf. The police harassed him during these protests, beating him up “half of the time” and detaining him “three or five times.” On one occasion, an officer struck him with a police baton, resulting in eight stitches in his eyebrow. And, apart from the protests, Luna testified that the police had detained him some “57 times” over the years. An immigration judge denied Luna’s application on the ground that he had not testified credibly, concluding that he had provided inconsistent and evasive answers. While conceding that the immigration judge “may have over-emphasized” some of the “apparent discrepancies” in Luna’s testimony, the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld the adverse credibility finding as not clearly erroneous. The Board added that Luna’s other evidence could not “independently establish” any of his three claims for relief. In his petition for review, Luna asks ...
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