NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _______________ No. 20-2983 _______________ EDUARD LYVOVICH ZAVALUNOV, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA _______________ On Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Agency No. A098-828-559) Immigration Judge: John B. Carle _______________ Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) on March 21, 2022 Before: BIBAS, MATEY, and PHIPPS, Circuit Judges (Filed: May 26, 2022) _______________ OPINION* _______________ BIBAS, Circuit Judge. Countries change over time. Oases of tolerance may slide into sectarian strife. But the reverse is true too: tolerance can blossom in formerly arid deserts. Here, an immigrant * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and, under I.O.P. 5.7, is not binding precedent. claims that if he is sent back to his birthplace, he will again endure anti-Semitic violence. But his country has changed, and evidence suggests that he would not suffer those terrors today. His family wanted to testify otherwise, but the government would not let them. Yet their testimony would have made no difference, so we will deny his petition for review. I. BACKGROUND Eduard Lyvovich Zavalunov was born in the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1991, when his country left the Soviet Union, war broke out between the government and the Islamist opposition. By the late 1990s, these tensions made Tajikistan a hard place for Zavalunov to practice his Jewish faith. Islamists began stealing Jews’ cars and “shooting the drivers right on the spot.” AR 251–52. This rising tide of anti-Semitism hit Zavalunov and his family hard. In 1998, people torched their synagogue. That year, Islamists stormed Zavalunov’s high school because the girls “would wear … modern skirts and dresses.” AR 255. When Islamists started raping girls, Zavalunov tried to defend one of them, so they slashed his foot. Once he fell to the ground, an Islamist burned his hand with a cigarette, put a dagger to his throat, and warned him: “[T]here is no place for the Jews in this country.” AR 257. Two years later, Islamists barged into Zavalunov’s apartment in the Jewish quarter. They started beating his parents and telling them that Jews needed to leave. When his par- ents resisted, they broke his mother’s nose and poured boiling water on his father. Next, they bribed government officials to let them seize and sell the Zavalunovs’ business. These terrors drove his father into exile and the rest of the family into hiding. 2 But the terrors recurred. The next year, an Islamist ambushed Zavalunov, stabbing and shooting him before fleeing. By 2006, he had had enough. Zavalunov followed his father to the United States and soon became a lawful permanent resident (green-card holder). But rather than finding lawful work, Zavalunov defrauded this country for nearly a decade. He paid poor people to take needless medical tests, billed Medicare and Medicaid, and then profited from the reimbursements. All told, Zavalunov conned taxpayers and in- surers out of almost $14 million. But the feds caught on …
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