United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 18-1790 MADHAV PRASAD DAHAL, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS Before Kayatta, Circuit Judge, Souter, Associate Justice, and Selya, Circuit Judge. Dilli Raj Bhatta for petitioner. Victoria M. Braga, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, U.S. Department of Justice, Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, and Cindy S. Ferrier, Assistant Director, for respondent. July 18, 2019 Hon. David H. Souter, Associate Justice (Ret.) of the Supreme Court of the United States, sitting by designation. SOUTER, Associate Justice. In the face of threatened deportation to Nepal, his country of citizenship, petitioner Madhav Prasad Dahal applied to the Government for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1158, 1231(b)(3); 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c). He contested deportation owing to his fear of persecution for his political beliefs if he repatriated. An Immigration Judge denied his application, and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed. We respond to Dahal's petition for review of the BIA's decision by granting the petition in part, denying it in part, and remanding. I In 1992, Dahal officially became a member of the Nepali Congress Party, which was a rival of the Communist Maoists. In 1996, the Maoists began an armed insurgency to overthrow the government. According to Dahal, whom the Immigration Judge found to be a credible witness, the Maoists persecuted him both during and after this conflict, based on his affiliation with the Congress Party. He testified that, beginning in 1997, Maoists sent him threatening letters and made similar phone calls, invaded his home, attacked him at a Congress Party meeting, and held him hostage until he agreed to pay them a portion of the profits from his business. Dahal claims that the persecution persisted even after - 2 - he reported the incidents to the police and changed his residence several times, and failed to cease in the aftermath of the insurgency's formal end with the signing of a peace agreement in 2006. In July 2010, Dahal traveled to the United States on a business trip. His visa authorized him to remain in the United States until January 2011, but he did not leave when the visa expired. Instead, he says he decided to stay because his relatives in Nepal informed him that an armed group of Maoists had come to his home there and threatened to kill him upon his return. He also testified that at one point during his absence the Maoists managed to cut off the water supply to his family's residence. In June 2011, Dahal filed an application for asylum with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). USCIS declined to grant Dahal asylum and referred his application to an Immigration Judge. DHS then ordered Dahal to appear before the Immigration Judge to show why ...
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