Almaz Sayoum Abebe Sisay Mengistu v. John Ashcroft, Attorney General

379 F.3d 755 Almaz Sayoum ABEBE; Sisay Mengistu, Petitioners, v. John ASHCROFT, Attorney General, Respondent. No. 02-72390. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted November 4, 2003. Filed August 13, 2004. Philip Hornik, Portland, OR, for the petitioners. Nancy E. Friedman (briefed) and Colette J. Winston (argued), Office of Immigration Litigation, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for the respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Before ALARCON, FERGUSON, and RAWLINSON, Circuit Judges. RAWLINSON, Circuit Judge: 1 Sisay Mengistu (Mengistu) and his wife, Almaz Sayoum Abebe (Abebe), citizens of Ethiopia, petition for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirming the denial of their applications for asylum and withholding of removal. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1105a. 1 Because Mengistu has not shown that a reasonable fact-finder would be compelled to find that he suffered past persecution or has a well-founded fear of future persecution, we DENY his petition for review. I. BACKGROUND & PROCEDURAL HISTORY 2 Mengistu entered the United States in 1990, and…

Sisay Mengistu (Mengistu) and his wife, Almaz Sayoum Abebe (Abebe), citizens of Ethiopia, petition for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirming the denial of their applications for asylum and withholding of removal. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1105a. 1 Because Mengistu has not shown that a reasonable fact-finder would be compelled to find that he suffered past persecution or has a well-founded fear of future persecution, we DENY his petition for review.

I. BACKGROUND & PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Mengistu entered the United States in 1990, and Abebe entered in 1993. Mengis-tu applied for asylum in July, 1993. Abebe’s asylum claim is derivative of Men-gistu’s.

Mengistu’s father and stepmother were involved with the then controlling government in Ethiopia, the DERG, a Marxist Leninist dictatorship ruled by Mengistu Haile Mariam (no relation to Petitioner). Petitioner Mengistu’s father and stepmother were imprisoned and stripped of their civil rights by the succeeding government, the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Mengistu was, but no longer is, a member of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP), an…

dissenting:

Female genital mutilation (“FGM”) imperils the health and human rights of more than one million women and girls each year. As recognized by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) decision establishing FGM as a basis for asylum, the effects of the procedure can be severe:

In re Fauziya Kasinga, 21 I. & N. Dec. 357 at *10-11 (B.I.A.1996) (en banc) (internal citation omitted).

In addition to the physical effects of the procedure, FGM “may leave a lasting mark on the life and mind of the woman who has undergone it,” causing her to experience” feelings of incompleteness, anxiety and depression.” World Health Organization, Fact Sheet: Female Genital Mutilation (2000), http://www.who.int/me-diacentre/factsheets/fs241. FGM has been recognized as a violation of international human rights and, in response to reports of its practice among immigrants to this country, criminalized under U.S. law. See Abankwah v. INS, 185 F.3d 18, 23 (2d Cir.1999).

The practice is pervasive in Ethiopia, the country of origin of petitioners Mengis-tu and Abebe. The U.S. State Department Ethiopia Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1996, included in the record, stated that almost all…