Case: 21-60850 Document: 00516808290 Page: 1 Date Filed: 07/03/2023 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit ____________ FILED July 3, 2023 No. 21-60850 Lyle W. Cayce Summary Calendar Clerk ____________ Mahesh Budhathok, Petitioner, versus Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General, Respondent. ______________________________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Agency No. A209 874 736 ______________________________ Before King, Higginson, and Willett, Circuit Judges. Stephen A. Higginson, Circuit Judge:* Mahesh Budhathok1 petitions for review of the dismissal by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) of his appeal from the denial by the Immigration Judge (IJ) of his application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). He has failed to raise, and therefore abandoned, any challenge to the rejection of his CAT _____________________ * This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5. 1 The petitioner’s brief clarifies that the correct spelling of his name is Budhathoki. Case: 21-60850 Document: 00516808290 Page: 2 Date Filed: 07/03/2023 No. 21-60850 claim and withholding of removal claim. See Soadjede v. Ashcroft, 324 F.3d 830, 833 (5th Cir. 2003) (per curiam). Asylum may be granted to “an alien who is unable or unwilling to return to his home country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Zhang v. Gonzales, 432 F.3d 339, 344 (5th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). An applicant may qualify for asylum either because he has suffered past persecution or because he has a well-founded fear of future persecution. Sanchez-Amador v. Garland, 30 F.4th 529, 533 (5th Cir. 2022). In either case, where the applicant’s alleged persecutors are “non-government actors, [the applicant] must also establish that the authorities [would be] unable or unwilling to control them.” Id. (cleaned up); see Bertrand v. Garland, 36 F.4th 627, 631 (5th Cir. 2022); Tesfamichael v. Gonzales, 469 F.3d 109, 113 (5th Cir. 2006). And “[a] finding of a well-founded fear of persecution is negated if the applicant can avoid persecution by relocating to another part of his home country.” Munoz-Granados v. Barr, 958 F.3d 402, 407 (5th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted). Because the petitioner fails to challenge the BIA’s determination that he did not establish past persecution, he has abandoned any argument on that point. See Soadjede, 324 F.3d at 833. In denying the petitioner’s asylum claim, the BIA determined that he had “not established a well-founded fear of future persecution” for two reasons. First, the BIA decided that he had “not demonstrated [that] he could not reasonably relocate within Nepal to avoid harm.” Second, the BIA concluded that he had “not shown that he fears harm at the hands of the government or a group that the government is unable or unwilling to control.” 2 Case: 21-60850 Document: 00516808290 Page: 3 Date Filed: 07/03/2023 No. 21-60850 On appeal, the petitioner only challenges the BIA’s …
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