Osorio v. Immigration and Naturalization Service

18 F.3d 1017 (1994)

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Osorio v. Immigration and Naturalization Service

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
18 F.3d 1017 (1994)

Facts

In March 1989, Vicente Osorio (defendant) and his wife entered the United States illegally from Guatemala. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) (plaintiff) began deportation proceedings, and Osorio sought asylum or withholding of deportation. Osorio testified that he joined a trade union, the Central Municipal Workers Union (SCTM), in 1984. In February 1984, Osorio joined the SCTM’s Executive Committee, and in November 1986, the SCTM held a general strike. Before the strike, Osorio testified that fellow union workers were threatened, shot, and killed by unidentified men. After the general strike in November 1986, Osorio and 75 other union workers were fired from their positions, and violence against the union continued through 1987. In December 1988, Osorio testified that he received an anonymous note at his home warning him to abandon his union activities before something serious happened to him. In January 1989, Angel Melgar, a former rebel, suggested in a public interview that trade unions had been infiltrated by communists. Osorio testified that he feared Melgar’s comments left him open to government reprisals, causing him and his wife to flee Guatemala without an exit permit. The immigration judge (IJ) denied Osorio’s application for asylum or withholding of importation, and Osorio appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). The BIA affirmed the IJ’s decision, finding that Osorio had not demonstrated political persecution. The BIA found the Guatemalan authorities’ persecution of trade unionists was an economic dispute, not a political dispute. The BIA found that Osorio only demonstrated a general oppression by the government, which is not political persecution as outlined by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and in the decision in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Elias-Zacarias. Osorio appealed to the Second Circuit, renewing his application for asylum or for withholding of deportation due to political persecution.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Oakes, J.)

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