D.G.M. v. Attorney General United States


NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _____________ No. 17-3360 _____________ D.G.M., Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent ________________ On Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Agency No. A088-446-835) Immigration Judge: Walter A. Durling ______________ Argued: February 6, 2020 ______________ Before: CHAGARES, RESTREPO, and BIBAS, Circuit Judges (Opinion Filed: February 26, 2020) Jules Epstein Rachel L. Goodman [ARGUED] Temple University Beasley School of Law 1719 North Broad Street Philadelphia, PA 19122 Counsel for Petitioner Sara J. Bayram Anna E. Juarez [ARGUED] United States Department of Justice Office of Immigration Litigation P.O. Box 878 Ben Franklin Station Washington, DC 20044 Counsel for Respondent ____________ OPINION* ____________ CHAGARES, Circuit Judge. D.G.M. petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming an Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) decision to deny his application for deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). For the following reasons, we will deny the petition for review. I. We write only for the parties, so our summary of the facts is brief. D.G.M., a native and citizen of Jamaica, entered the United States in 2000. In 2006, he pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute marijuana and to aiding and abetting the discharge of a firearm. D.G.M. cooperated with authorities to provide information about his co-defendants and was sentenced to time served, or 41 months of imprisonment. He was released in 2008. Then, in 2016, D.G.M. was convicted of making interstate threats in connection with a family dispute. In 2017, * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and, pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7, does not constitute binding precedent. 2 he was placed into removal proceedings based on his 2006 conviction of an aggravated felony. D.G.M. applied for CAT protection. D.G.M. proceeded pro se before the IJ. In support of his application, D.G.M. testified about his prior cooperation, explaining that he had provided information about his co-defendants, six Jamaican individuals who “were involved with the drug trade.” Joint Appendix (“JA”) 294. D.G.M. had testified against five of them in two separate trials. Four of D.G.M.’s co-defendants were eventually convicted and sentenced to at least thirty-five years in prison. D.G.M. testified that he feared returning to Jamaica because he would likely be harmed by his co-defendants or their families. He explained that at one of the trials, two of the co-defendants threatened him. D.G.M. stated that these individuals were Jamaican drug suppliers and from the same “ghetto” as him in Jamaica. JA295. D.G.M. also testified that the co-defendants’ friends threatened him when he was in prison in 2007. In 2009, one co-defendant, a United States citizen who had not been convicted, told D.G.M.’s girlfriend that he would kill D.G.M. when he saw him. D.G.M. further testified that a Jamaican individual whom he did not know threatened him in prison in 2016, accusing D.G.M. of testifying against the individual’s friends and cutting D.G.M.’s ...

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