JONAS NSONGI MBONGA v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General - Articles

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JONAS NSONGI MBONGA v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General

Posted by: Tanja Trezise on Nov 22, 2021

Court: 6th Circuit Court (Published Opinions)

Attorneys 1: ARGUED: Austin N. Davis, BAKER & HOSTETLER LLP, Cleveland, Ohio, for Petitioner.

Attorneys 2: ARGUED: John F. Stanton, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.

Attorneys 3: ON BRIEF: Austin N. Davis, Michael E. Mumford, BAKER & HOSTETLER LLP, Cleveland, Ohio, for Petitioner.

Attorneys 4: ON BRIEF: John F. Stanton, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.

Judge(s): McKEAGUE, NALBANDIAN, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. The immigration laws give the Attorney General discretion to grant asylum to “refugees”—a term that includes those who have suffered persecution in their home countries because of their political beliefs. Exercising this discretion, the Attorney General has instructed immigration judges that they generally should deny asylum to refugees who have suffered past persecution if changed conditions in their countries make future persecution unlikely. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(1)(i)(A). This case requires us to consider the type of evidence that permits the Board of Immigration Appeals to find these disqualifying changed country conditions.

Even though Jonas Nsongi Mbonga previously suffered political persecution in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Board of Immigration Appeals denied him asylum because his own political party had since assumed power in the country. The Board reasoned that this change in the government made any future political persecution unlikely. Nsongi Mbonga argues that this generic evidence about a national governmental change did not suffice and that the Board needed to rely on specific evidence tailored to his local situation. His argument gets things backwards under our caselaw. The Board can find a disqualifying change in conditions using general evidence showing that the political party that persecuted a refugee has lost power, which shifts the burden to the refugee to identify specific evidence proving that persecution still remains likely. Because Nsongi Mbonga did not present such evidence, we deny his petition for review.

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