NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS SEP 21 2021 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT HARKIRAT SINGH, No. 20-72856 Petitioner, Agency No. A087-625-564 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted August 10, 2021** San Francisco, California Before: SILER,*** CHRISTEN, and FORREST, Circuit Judges. Petitioner Harkirat Singh seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA’s) decision affirming the Immigration Judge’s (IJ’s) denial of his requests for * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable Eugene E. Siler, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation. asylum and withholding of removal. He appeals the IJ’s and BIA’s determination that he was not targeted based on a protected ground and attempts to raise a pattern and practice claim not brought before the IJ. Singh’s mistreatment by Ashuk Kumar, a local politician in India, was motivated by Kumar’s embarrassment over a business dispute. Singh failed to show any nexus between this mistreatment and a protected ground. He did not raise a pattern and practice claim before the IJ and, in failing to do so, waived this claim. We deny the petition for review. Where the BIA affirms the IJ’s decision, we review both decisions. Garcia- Martinez v. Sessions, 886 F.3d 1291, 1293 (9th Cir. 2018). Factual findings are reviewed under the substantial evidence standard and are “conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B); see Li v. Holder, 559 F.3d 1096, 1102 (9th Cir. 2009). 1. To qualify for asylum or withholding of removal, Singh must show past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Sael v. Ashcroft, 386 F.3d 922, 924 (9th Cir. 2004) (citation omitted). For asylum, he must demonstrate that the protected ground was “one central reason” for his past or feared harm. 8 U.S.C § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i); Parussimova v. Mukasey, 555 F.3d 734, 740 (9th Cir. 2008). For withholding of removal, he must show only that the 2 protected ground was “a reason” for the harm. Barajas-Romero v. Lynch, 846 F.3d 351, 358-60 (9th Cir. 2017). The nexus between a protected ground and the harm is “critical” under the statute, INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 483 (1992), but “[p]urely personal retribution is, of course, not persecution on account of [a protected ground],” Grava v. INS, 205 F.3d 1177, 1181 n.3 (9th Cir. 2000). Here, Kumar, a powerful politician, refused to make payments on a loan and used the police to punish Singh in retaliation for what Kumar perceived as an insult. The IJ and BIA reasonably …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals