The Fourth Circuit has joined multiple other circuits and affirmed the Board of Immigration Appeals' (Board) requirement that torture be inflicted by government officials with specific intent to fall within the ambit of the Convention Against Torture. Thus, it is not enough to show that Haitian officials would detain the applicant in substandard prison conditions, even if these conditions demonstrate with near certainty that the applicant will suffer harm rising to the level of torture. Instead, an applicant must show that the officials are imprisoning the applicant with the specific intent that they experience torture. The court was careful to note that neither the Board's case law nor its precedent should be construed as a blanket ban on torture claims based on substandard prison conditions.
The full text of Oxygene v. Lynch can be found here: http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/142380.P.pdf