PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 17-1404 MOCKTAR A. TAIROU, Petitioner, v. MATTHEW G. WHITAKER, Acting Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: September 27, 2018 Decided: November 30, 2018 Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, MOTZ, Circuit Judge, and William L. OSTEEN, Jr., United States District Judge for the Middle District of North Carolina, sitting by designation. Petition for review granted and remanded by published opinion. Chief Judge Gregory wrote the opinion, in which Judge Motz and Judge Osteen joined. ARGUED: John Franklin Hester, Jr., MCCOPPIN & ASSOCIATES, PA, Cary, North Carolina, for Petitioner. Jane Tracey Schaffner, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Richard Andrew McCoppin, MCCOPPIN & ASSOCIATES, P.A., Cary, North Carolina, for Petitioner. Chad A. Readler, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Douglas E. Ginsburg, Assistant Director, Katherine A. Smith, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. GREGORY, Chief Judge: Mocktar Tairou (“Tairou”) petitions this Court to review a final removal order by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) denying his asylum and withholding of removal application and ordering his removal to Benin. Tairou contends that the BIA erred in finding that he was not subjected to past persecution and that he lacked a well- founded fear of persecution were he to return to Benin. Our binding precedent explicitly holds that a threat of death constitutes persecution. Because Tairou experienced multiple death threats in Benin, we hold Tairou established that he was subjected to past persecution. We therefore grant the petition for review and remand to allow the BIA to consider whether, in light of Tairou’s demonstrated past persecution, he has a well- founded fear of future persecution. I. A. Tairou was born in Benin in 1977. Although Tairou is married to a woman, he testified that in 2007, he developed affectionate feelings for a man and “figured out [he] was a homosexual.” J.A. 73. In 2008, Tairou met a French man named AY through a website. * The two men eventually developed a romantic relationship. In 2009 and again in 2013, AY came to visit Tairou in Cotonou, Benin, where Tairou rented an apartment for AY. Tairou informed his wife and his father about his relationship with AY, and they * In the interest of protecting Tairou’s partner’s privacy, we refer to him only by letters. 2 both accepted it. After learning of the relationship, Tairou’s wife informed him that she in fact viewed herself as a lesbian. Although Tairou was open with his wife and father about his romantic relationship with AY, Tairou and AY generally kept their relationship a secret. Despite the general secrecy surrounding their relationship, Tairou and AY were openly affectionate with each other in front of Tairou’s cousin, Djamiou, during a night out in Cotonou in August of 2013. Because Tairou was very close with his cousin, he did not think that Djamiou would have a problem ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals