United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________ No. 21-1800 ___________________________ Carine Fuatabreh Adongafac lllllllllllllllllllllPetitioner v. Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General of the United States lllllllllllllllllllllRespondent ____________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals ____________ Submitted: June 15, 2022 Filed: November 21, 2022 ____________ Before LOKEN and KELLY, Circuit Judges, and MENENDEZ, District Judge.* ____________ LOKEN, Circuit Judge. The Department of Homeland Security commenced removal proceedings after Carine Fautabreh Adongafac, a citizen of Cameroon, entered the United States on November 30, 2019, in Laredo, Texas. She conceded removability and applied for * The Honorable Katherine M. Menendez, United States District Judge for the District of Minnesota, sitting by designation. asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Following a hearing, the Immigration Judge (IJ) denied her application, finding that she failed to establish past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissed Ms. Adongafac’s appeal in a four-page opinion. She now petitions for judicial review of the final order of removal. The BIA’s decision is the final agency action we review; we review the IJ’s decision “to the extent that the BIA adopted the findings or reasoning of the IJ.” Barrera Arreguin v. Garland, 29 F.4th 1010, 1015 (8th Cir. 2022) (quotation omitted). Ms. Adongafac raises three issues on appeal. She first argues the BIA improperly applied Fifth Circuit instead of Eighth Circuit law in denying her application. Ms. Adongafac was in Louisiana during her asylum hearing, conducted by video conference, but the case was docketed in Minnesota. Venue is proper “where the administrative hearings were completed.” Llapa-Sinchi v. Mukasey, 520 F.3d 897, 901 (8th Cir. 2008) (citation omitted); see Matter of R-C-R-, 28 I. & N. Dec. 74, 74 n.1 (B.I.A. 2020). Thus, Minnesota appears to be the proper venue. But Ms. Adongafac’s appeal to the BIA did not argue the IJ erred in applying Fifth Circuit law, so failure to exhaust deprives us of jurisdiction to consider that issue. See Molina v. Whitaker, 910 F.3d 1056, 1061 (8th Cir. 2018), citing 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1). Moreover, Ms. Adongafac fails to identify how Eighth Circuit law differs from the Fifth Circuit authorities cited by the IJ and the BIA, so any error by the BIA is harmless. The government’s brief to our court relied on Eighth Circuit precedents, as will we. -2- Ms. Adongafac’s other two asylum issues require careful review.1 She argues (i) the BIA erred in upholding the IJ’s ruling that she failed to provide reasonably obtainable evidence corroborating her otherwise credible testimony, see 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(ii); 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(a); and (ii) the IJ and the BIA erred in finding that she did not demonstrate a well-founded fear of future persecution based on a pattern and practice of persecuting similar persons. To be eligible for asylum, Ms. Adongafac must prove that she is a “refugee,” 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(A), meaning that she is unwilling or unable to …
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