Fouad Youssef Hakim Mansour v. John Ashcroft, Attorney General, Soheir Gamil Shaker Ewada v. John Ashcroft, Attorney General

390 F.3d 667 Fouad Youssef Hakim MANSOUR, Petitioner, v. John ASHCROFT, Attorney General, Respondent. Soheir Gamil Shaker Ewada, Petitioner, v. John Ashcroft, Attorney General, Respondent. No. 02-72515. No. 02-72516. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted March 31, 2004. Filed December 6, 2004. COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED James R. Patterson, San Diego, CA, for the petitioners. David Dauenheimer and Genevieve Holm, United States Department of Justice, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, Washington, D.C., for the respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Before PREGERSON, BEEZER, and TALLMAN, Circuit Judges. Opinion by Judge Beezer; Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge Pregerson BEEZER, Circuit Judge. 1 Fouad Mansour petitions for review from a summary affirmance by the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") of the decision of an Immigration Judge ("IJ"). His wife, Soheir Ewada, is a derivative applicant whose petition depends exclusively on the merits of Mansour's petition. The IJ determined that Mansour had not established past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution.…

Opinion by Judge Beezer; Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge Pregerson

Fouad Mansour petitions for review from a summary affirmance by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) of the decision of an Immigration Judge (“IJ”). His wife, Soheir Ewada, is a derivative applicant whose petition depends exclusively on the merits of Mansour’s petition. The IJ determined that Mansour had not established past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution. Mans-our and Ewada (“Petitioners”) contend that: (1) the IJ’s adverse credibility finding was not supported by substantial evidence; (2) the IJ erred in concluding that Mansour had not suffered past persecution; (3) the IJ erred by not evaluating whether Mansour had a well-founded fear of future persecution; (4) the IJ erred in denying Petitioners’ requests for voluntary departure; and (5) the BIA erred in affirming without opinion the decision of the IJ. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252 and we deny the petition for review in part and dismiss in part.

I

Petitioners are natives and citizens of Egypt who entered the United States as *670 non-immigrant tourists on November 26, 1988, and March 13, 1989…

concurring in part and dissenting in part.

I concur in Parts I, II, III, and V of the majority’s opinion but dissent from Part IV and from the judgment of the court. I would grant the Petition for Review because, for the reasons explained more fully below, I believe that Petitioners have established that they were persecuted in the past on account of a protected ground and, as a result, áre presumptively entitled to asylum and withholding of removal. 1 Alternatively, I would hold that Petitioners are eligible for asylum because they have established an independently well-founded *675 fear that their United States citizen children will be persecuted if their family-returns to Egypt. 2

1. Coptic Christians Are a Significantly “Disfavored Group” in Egypt.

Petitioners are Coptic Christians from Egypt. Copts are the largest Christian community in the Middle East, dating to 42 AD when Saint Mark is believed to have founded the first church in Alexandria. Nonetheless, Egypt’s Coptic minority presently makes up only eight to ten percent of the country’s population and has been a frequent target of discrimination and violence throughout Egypt’s history. See Bureau of Democracy, Human…