Application for asylum, withholding of removal, & protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT); Motion to reopen; Alleged interpreter mistranslations; “Inconsistent testimony”; Whether the allegedly inaccurate interpretation violated petitioner’s due process rights; Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA); Immigration judge (IJ)

The court denied petitioner-Deh’s petition for review of the BIA’s denial of his motion to reopen his petition for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT where he was unable to identify any specific translation errors in his immigration hearings. Deh is a Mauritanian citizen. He asserted that he was forced to work as a slave and that he was repeatedly arrested and tortured by police. The IJ denied his petition, citing inconsistencies in his testimony. He did not appeal to the BIA but instead moved to reopen proceedings, claiming that his court-appointed interpreter, who had later been disqualified, mistranslated parts of his immigration hearings. The IJ denied the motion, and the BIA affirmed. The court explained that an IJ may only grant a motion to reopen if the petitioner offers “material” evidence that was not available, discoverable, or presented at the prior hearing. The court held that Deh failed to offer “any evidence likely to change the outcome of this case.” He was unable to identify any specific translation errors, and he failed to obtain the transcript and audio of his hearings, which could have been reviewed by another interpreter. The court also noted that he failed to explain “what he meant to say at the third hearing. After all, the [IJ] identified the ‘most important concerns’ from Deh’s testimony that contributed to determining he wasn’t credible. So even if Deh can’t pinpoint a translation error, he could at least explain what he meant to say at his third hearing and how that would have alleviated the credibility concerns. But he” did not do so. The court added that the inconsistencies in Deh’s testimony from his prior hearings already supported the IJ’s “finding that he wasn’t credible, regardless of what he said at the third hearing.” It also found it significant that he did not seek asylum in any country he traveled through on his way to the U.S. As to his due process claim, given that he could not “point to any specific interpretation errors, even on appeal, . . . the [IJ] couldn’t have known about any alleged interpretation issues during the hearing. Thus, the hearing didn’t violate Deh’s due-process rights.” Finally, the court dismissed his claim that “the agency erred by failing to sua sponte reopen the immigration proceedings” for lack of jurisdiction.