NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 20a0594n.06 No. 19-3841 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED MERCY WEST, ) Oct 20, 2020 ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk Petitioner, ) ) v. ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW ) FROM THE UNITED STATES WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION ) APPEALS Respondent. ) ) BEFORE: ROGERS, SUTTON, and STRANCH, Circuit Judges. ROGERS, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which SUTTON and STRANCH, JJ., joined. STRANCH, J. (pp. 15–16), delivered a separate concurring opinion. ROGERS, Circuit Judge. Mercy West, a citizen of Nigeria, appeals the Board of Immigration Appeals’ denial of her application for withholding of removal. Of the issues that West raises in this appeal, two are beyond the court’s jurisdiction because they were not raised to the Board, and another was not relied upon by the Board in its final ruling. The only remaining aspect of the Board’s decision before us is its determination that West has not shown that, if she returns to Nigeria, it is more likely than not that her daughters would be subjected to female genital mutilation. That determination, however, is supported by substantial evidence, including a decline in the incidence of FGM in Nigeria, as well as the ability of her daughters to avoid FGM by living in Lagos rather than in West’s home village. No. 19-3841, West v. Barr West, who is forty-seven years old, comes from the Ibo tribe in Umu-Ejechi Umualum, a village in the town of Nekede in southeastern Nigeria. At the age of seven, West became a victim of female genital mutilation, a surgical operation “involving the removal of some or all of the external genitalia, performed on girls and women primarily in Africa and Asia.” Abay v. Ashcroft, 368 F.3d 634, 638 (6th Cir. 2004). In 1994, West left her village and moved to Lagos, where she went to college for accounting. She married Jerry Okoro two years later and gave birth to a daughter in 2001. West, along with her husband and daughter, were admitted to the U.S. in April 2003 on nonimmigrant tourist visas, with authority to stay for six months. West and her daughter have remained in the U.S. ever since. In 2005, West had a second daughter with Okoro. In 2008, West divorced Okoro and married Marcel West. Marcel filed an alien relative petition on West’s behalf, but that petition was denied in 2010 on the grounds that the marriage was fraudulent and that Marcel had been convicted of a sex crime. West has since divorced Marcel and is now married to Vernon Hill, a U.S. citizen. Later in 2010, the Department of Homeland Security sought to remove West on the basis that she was an alien who had overstayed her visa. See 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(B). West, who was represented by counsel, conceded removability, but filed an application for withholding of removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A) and, alternatively, for voluntary departure. West wrote in her application ...
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