Yasemeen Shafo v. Robert M. Wilkinson


NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 21a0048n.06 No. 19-4143 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Jan 25, 2021 YASEMEEN SHAFO, ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk ) Petitioner, ) ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW v. ) FROM THE UNITED STATES ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION ROBERT M. WILKINSON, Acting Attorney ) APPEALS General, ) ) Respondent. ) ) BEFORE: SUTTON, BUSH, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges. MURPHY, Circuit Judge. Yasemeen Shafo became a lawful permanent resident of the United States when she was a small child. As an adult, she has committed a series of crimes (from arson to home invasion), so the government sought to remove her to her native Iraq. Given her crimes, Shafo could seek relief from this removal only under the Convention Against Torture. The Board of Immigration Appeals held that she had not made the showing required for this relief: that she was likely to be tortured by or with the acquiescence of the Iraqi government. We agree with the Board that the record contains “profoundly mixed” evidence about the conditions in Iraq—a conclusion that all but bars judicial intervention under our deferential standard of review. See Nasrallah v. Barr, 140 S. Ct. 1683, 1692 (2020). We thus deny Shafo’s petition for review. No. 19-4143, Shafo v. Wilkinson I Yasemeen Shafo, a native and citizen of Iraq, has lived in the United States since 1977 when she was two years old. While still in Iraq, Shafo was baptized into the Chaldean Catholic Church, a Christian religious community that has been in Iraq for centuries. She and her mother fled the country a short time later, after her father died. They were admitted into the United States as lawful permanent residents. In 2007 and 2008, Shafo was convicted in Michigan state court of arson, embezzlement, and stealing a financial-transaction device. Shafo had set fire to her failing business in an attempt to get the insurance proceeds. She subsequently allowed a friend to steal over $1,000 worth of merchandise from the Macy’s at which she worked and used a credit card that a customer had left behind at another friend’s store. These crimes led the government to charge Shafo with being removable to Iraq. See 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii)–(iii). Shafo conceded her removability but applied for “withholding of removal.” See id. § 1231(b)(3)(A). She asserted that her life would be threatened in Iraq because of her Chaldean Christian religion and the then-ongoing expansion of ISIS. In 2010, an immigration judge granted Shafo withholding of removal. Six years later, however, Shafo was convicted of home invasion in the second degree and sentenced to 5 to 25 years’ imprisonment. The government moved to terminate the previous grant of withholding of removal on the ground that Shafo had committed a “particularly serious crime” and was now ineligible for that relief. Id. § 1231(b)(3)(B)(ii); see id. §§ 1101(a)(43)(G), 1158(b)(2)(B)(i). The immigration judge agreed. Shafo thus applied for relief under the Convention Against Torture, which bars removal to a place where ...

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