FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION AUG 25 2022 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT JAGJIT SINGH, No. 17-70396 Petitioner, Agency No. A202-052-997 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted August 10, 2022 Seattle, Washington Before: BERZON, CHRISTEN, and FORREST, Circuit Judges. Petitioner Jagjit Singh, a native and citizen of India, seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) final order dismissing Singh’s claims for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief pursuant to the Convention Against Torture (CAT). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we grant in * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. part and deny in part Singh’s petition for review. Because the parties are familiar with the facts, we do not recite them here. We confine our review to the BIA’s decision except where the BIA adopts the Immigration Judge’s (IJ) decision. Guerra v. Barr, 974 F.3d 909, 911 (9th Cir. 2020). “We review for substantial evidence the BIA’s determination that a petitioner has failed to establish eligibility for asylum or withholding of removal.” Sharma v. Garland, 9 F.4th 1052, 1060 (9th Cir. 2021). We review de novo questions of law. Abebe v. Gonzales, 432 F.3d 1037, 1040 (9th Cir. 2005). 1. The BIA did not address the IJ’s adverse credibility finding and instead denied Singh’s asylum claim because it concluded that Singh did not establish past persecution. As a result, the BIA also denied Singh’s claim for withholding of removal because “[t]he standard for receiving withholding of removal is higher than that for receiving asylum.” Singh contends the BIA erred in finding that he failed to offer “specific information” regarding the impact of the harm he suffered. We review de novo “[w]hether particular acts constitute persecution for asylum purposes.” Boer-Sedano v. Gonzales, 418 F.3d 1082, 1088 (9th Cir. 2005) (emphases omitted). But we review for substantial evidence the BIA’s determination that a petitioner’s past harm does not rise to the level of past persecution. See Sharma, 9 F.4th at 1060. The parties disagree which of these 2 standards of review apply here. We need not address that question, however, because the record establishes that the BIA erred under either standard. Critically, in addition to testifying that police detained him for one day and beat him with wooden batons for nearly an hour, Singh testified that police came to his family’s home in search of him and threatened to kill him when they found him. He also testified that members of the Badal Party beat him on several occasions and repeatedly threatened him with death, and that when he sought to report one of the beatings to the police, the police refused to take his complaint. Further, since he fled India, police and Badal Party members have returned to his family’s home several …
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