Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Nachhattar Singh, his wife Sandeep Kaur, and their two minor children petitioned the Ninth Circuit to review a Board of Immigration Appeals decision denying their applications for asylum and withholding of removal. The panel's account of the record is brief. Singh suffered three assaults and received two death threats, all in the state of Haryana, and his primary assailant is affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Party. Singh is Sikh, speaks Punjabi, has family in Punjab, and works for a farmer's union based there.
The BIA concluded that the assaults, though reprehensible, caused only minor injuries and that the death threats were not menacing enough to amount to past persecution. The agency also found that the family could safely and reasonably relocate to Punjab. The BIA did not reach the immigration judge's adverse credibility determination and instead affirmed the judge's alternative merits ruling. The Ninth Circuit reviews the BIA's decision, and the immigration judge's opinion only to the extent the BIA expressly adopted it, examining factual findings for substantial evidence and legal questions de novo. The panel decided the case without oral argument.
The Court’s Holding
The court denied the petition. It first held that substantial evidence supported the finding that Singh had not shown past persecution. Citing Duran-Rodriguez v. Barr and Sharma v. Garland, the panel noted that harm must be severe enough to cause significant actual suffering or harm, and the record did not compel any reasonable adjudicator to conclude otherwise under the standard restated in Urias-Orellana v. Bondi.
The court also upheld the relocation finding. It said the agency performed the individualized analysis required by Singh v. Whitaker, weighing Singh's Sikh faith, which is the majority in Punjab, his fluency in Punjabi, his relatives there, and his ability to keep working for his union. The agency further relied on the fact that all prior harm occurred in Haryana, that nothing suggested his assailants would pursue him across India, and that the BJP is not in power in Punjab. Because relocation defeated the claim of a well-founded fear of future persecution, both asylum and withholding failed.
To the extent petitioners raised a due process claim, the court rejected it for lack of prejudice. The agency did not rely on the credibility findings, since the BIA declined to reach them, and petitioners' remaining arguments merely disagreed with the agency's conclusions. Separately, the court treated as waived any challenge to the BIA's determination that petitioners had waived review of the immigration judge's Convention Against Torture ruling, because their opening brief did not contest it. The motion to stay removal was denied.
Key Takeaways
- Assaults that caused only minor injuries, paired with death threats found not menacing enough to cause significant suffering, did not compel a finding of past persecution on this record.
- An internal relocation finding is sturdier when the agency analyzes the petitioner's own faith, language, family ties, work, and the geographic reach of past harm, rather than relying on generalities.
- A due process challenge to an immigration judge's credibility findings fails for lack of prejudice when the BIA declined to reach those findings and affirmed on an alternative merits ground.
- Issues not contested in the opening brief, including a challenge to the BIA's waiver ruling on Convention Against Torture relief, are waived and will not be addressed.
- The denial of the petition was accompanied by denial of the motion to stay removal.
Why It Matters
This is an unpublished memorandum disposition. It is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3, so it binds no future panel, though it shows how the court applies settled authority on persecution, internal relocation, and prejudice in immigration cases.
The ruling leaves the agency's denial of asylum and withholding in place, and the court did not stay removal. The court did not decide whether Singh was credible, and it did not reach the merits of any Convention Against Torture claim. Practitioners should note the emphasis on briefing every ground the BIA relied on and on tailoring relocation arguments to the individual record.