NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 6 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT CHIRAJAN SUBEDI, No. 17-73360 Petitioner, Agency No. A209-171-079 v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted November 7, 2019 Portland, Oregon Before: GILMAN,** PAEZ, and RAWLINSON, Circuit Judges. Chirajan Subedi, a native and citizen of Nepal, petitions for the review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). The decision affirmed the Immigration Judge’s (IJ) denial of Subedi’s application for asylum, withholding of * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Ronald Lee Gilman, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation. removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. Our review is “limited to the BIA’s decision, except to the extent that the IJ’s opinion is expressly adopted.” Khudaverdyan v. Holder, 778 F.3d 1101, 1105 (9th Cir. 2015) (citation omitted). We review questions of law de novo, Rodriguez v. Holder, 683 F.3d 1164, 1169 (9th Cir. 2012), and factual findings under the substantial-evidence standard, Navas v. I.N.S., 217 F.3d 646, 657 (9th Cir. 2000) (citing I.N.S. v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481 (1992)). Although the substantial-evidence standard demands deference, “deference does not mean blindness.” Li v. Ashcroft, 356 F.3d 1153, 1158 (9th Cir. 2004). Reversal is appropriate if “the evidence compels a contrary conclusion from that adopted by the BIA.” Parada v. Sessions, 902 F.3d 901, 909 (9th Cir. 2018) (quoting Afriyie v. Holder, 613 F.3d 924, 931 (9th Cir. 2010)). We conclude that substantial evidence does not support the BIA’s finding with regard to whether Subedi suffered past persecution in Nepal. The BIA also erred as a matter of law by not considering the cumulative effect of the threats and violence that Subedi suffered, by improperly placing the burden on Subedi to demonstrate that relocation was unreasonable, and by failing to consider all of the relevant evidence in support of his claim for relief under the CAT. We therefore grant Subedi’s petition and remand this case to the BIA for further proceedings. 2 1. To determine whether Subedi “has made out a sufficient case of past persecution,” we compare “the facts of this case to cases in which we have, and have not, found past persecution.” See Ruano v. Aschroft, 301 F.3d 1155, 1159 (9th Cir. 2002). This court has consistently held “that physical harm constitutes persecution,” Lopez v. Ashcroft, 366 F.3d 799, 803 (9th Cir. 2004) (citing Chand v. I.N.S., 222 F.3d 1066, 1073 (9th Cir. 2000)), and that death threats, particularly when accompanied by something more, such as extortion, violence, or close “confrontations,” rise to the level of past persecution as well, Mashiri v. Ashcroft, 383 F.3d 1112, 1119 (9th Cir. ...
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