Del Cid Mayen v. Ashcroft

MEMORANDUM **

Jose Del Cid Mayen (“Del Cid Mayen”), a native and citizen of Guatemala, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeal’s (BIA) finding that he failed to establish statutory eligibility for asylum and withholding of deportation. Affirming the immigration judge’s order, the BIA concluded that Del Cid Mayen failed to demonstrate that Guatemalan guerrillas threatened to forcibly conscript him on account of his political opinion. We review the BIA’s, and the underlying immigration judge’s, findings regarding an asylum seeker’s well-founded fear of persecution under the deferential “substantial evidence” standard. 1 Under this standard, we may not reverse the BIA “unless the evidence compels a contrary conclusion.”

*694 Congress has granted the Attorney General the discretion to allow political asylum to any alien the Attorney General determines to be a refugee. 3 The Immigration and Nationality Act defines the term “refugee” as an alien unwilling to return to his country of origin “because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.” 4 We held in…