UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 98-2659

GUSTAV EKOW ROLANDS, a/k/a Forrest Palmer Hagen, Petitioner, versus

U.S. IMMIGRATION & NATURALIZATION SERVICE, Respondent.

On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. (A72-885-623)

Submitted: April 20, 1999 Decided: May 13, 1999

Before HAMILTON and LUTTIG, Circuit Judges, and PHILLIPS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Petition denied by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Reverend Uduak J. Ubom, UBOM, WHITE & ROBERTS, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. David W. Ogden, Acting Assistant Attorney General, David V. Bernal, Assistant Director, Hugh G. Mullane, Office of Immigration Litigation, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

See Local Rule 36(c).

PER CURIAM: Gustav Ekow Rolands seeks review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Board) affirming the decision of the immi- gration judge (IJ) and denying him political asylum, 8 U.S.C.A. § 1158 (West Supp. 1998), and withholding of deportation, 8 U.S.C.A.

§ 1253(h) (West Supp. 1998). Rolands is a citizen of Ghana who came to this country from Germany in 1994, having left Ghana in 1993.

We conclude that the decision of the Board, based on the reasoning of the IJ, is supported by “reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole . . . .” 8 U.S.C.A. § 1105(a)(4) (West Supp. 1998).* Therefore, we deny Rolands’s petition for review. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

PETITION DENIED

* Section 306(b) of the Illegal Immigration Reform Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), Pub. L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009, repealed 8 U.S.C. § 1105(a)(4), replacing it with 8 U.S.C.A.

§ 1252(b)(4) (West Supp. 1998). However, because Rolands was in deportation proceedings before the effective date of the IIRIRA, the transitional rules provide for judicial review under §1105(a)(4) as it existed before enactment of the IIRIRA. IIRIRA § 309(c)(4).