AYALA v. U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL

AYALA v. U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL

LEONEL EURO AYALA, Petitioner,
v.
U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent.

No. 09-12113.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

May 7, 2010.

Before PRYOR and FAY, Circuit Judges, and QUIST,^[ 1 ] District Judge.

PRYOR, Circuit Judge.

This petition for review presents the issue whether the Board of Immigration Appeals gave reasoned consideration to the application for asylum and withholding of removal of Leonel Euro Ayala, a native and citizen of Venezuela. Ayala, who is homosexual and opposes the Chavez government, alleged that he had suffered past persecution on account of his sexual orientation and political opinion. Both the Board and the immigration judge credited Ayala's testimony that in December 2004 several Venezuelan police officers assaulted him after he left a gay nightclub in Caracas. Ayala testified that the police officers hit him, robbed him, handcuffed him, detained him in a patrol car, placed a hood over his head, and forced him to perform oral sex on one of the officers. The police officers threatened to arrest Ayala for being homosexual and told Ayala "[t]hey could incarcerate [him] or plant drugs in [his] house and that was all as a result of being queer." An immigration judge denied Ayala's application for asylum and withholding of removal, and the Board affirmed the decision.

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