Economic Torture

An alien is entitled to protection under CAT when he or she is “more likely than not [to] … be tortured … [in] the proposed country of removal.”8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c)(2).“The burden of proof is on the applicant … to establish that it is more likely than not that he or she would be tortured if removed to the proposed country of removal.”Id. In In re J-F-F-, the Attorney General pointed out that logically:

[a]n alien will never be able to show that he faces a more likely than not chance of torture if one link in the chain cannot be shown to be more likely than not to occur. It is the likelihood of all necessary events coming together that must more likely than not lead to torture, and a chain of events cannot be more likely than its least likely link.

In his application for asylum and withholding of removal, Savchuck wrote in response to the question “are you afraid of being subject to torture in your home country” that he feared that he would “be subjected to severe economic hardship,” which would result in him “living on the street,” “fall[ing] prey to the criminals and corrupt local government officials,” and make it “impossible … to buy food or other basic life essentials,” thus resulting in his death at “a very early age.” Relying on In re J-F-F-, the BIA determined that Savchuck’s “claim is too speculative in that it involves a chain of assumptions regarding the respondent’s potential economic situation in Ukraine.”This conclusion was correct.