NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit Chicago, Illinois 60604 Submitted May 17, 2019 * Decided May 24, 2019 Before MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge AMY C. BARRETT, Circuit Judge MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge No. 18-3257 PARVINDER SINGH, Petition for Review of Orders from the Petitioner, Board of Immigration Appeals. v. No. A 202-010-180 WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General of the United States, Respondent. ORDER Parvinder Singh, a 29-year-old citizen of India, applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture because he fears harm based on political affiliation if returned to India. An immigration judge denied his applications, finding that Singh has not shown that the harm he experienced rose to the level of persecution, that a nexus existed between the harm and his political opinion, or that he would be unable to relocate safely within India. The Board of Immigration * We have agreed to decide this case without oral argument because the briefs and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not significantly aid the court. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). No. 18-3257 Page 2 Appeals upheld that ruling. Because substantial evidence supports the agency’s decisions, we deny the petition. Singh, a Sikh from the northwestern state of Punjab, belonged to a splinter faction of the Shiromani Akali Dal, a prominent and longstanding Sikh political party in India. The party’s primary faction, led by a man named Prakash Singh Badal, is the dominant political power in Punjab. (Badal was appointed Chief Minister of Punjab in 1997.) Singh worked for a splinter faction called Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar)—also known as the Mann faction—named after Simranjit Singh Mann, who advocated for the establishment of a Sikh homeland. Because they advocate for an independent Sikh state and criticize the treatment of Sikhs by Indian authorities, Mann faction members have faced harassment from both the Badal faction and the police. In Singh’s asylum application and in his testimony before an immigration judge, he described three incidents of past harm. First, in November 2011, he suffered “very minor injuries” when he and a few other members of the Mann faction were hit with batons by police while disrupting a political rally at the Golden Temple, a holy shrine for Sikhs in the city of Amritsar. Second, in February 2012, he and other members of the Mann faction were chased by a small group of Badal adherents while putting up posters for a political rally in a nearby Punjabi city. Finally, in June 2014, after unsuccessfully attempting to flee to the United States, he was attacked at a political rally at the Golden Temple by unidentifiable people wielding wooden sticks. Singh was arrested, detained in a cell for four to seven hours, and suffered “minor injuries” for which he received treatment at a hospital. He then relocated safely within India, leaving Amritsar for another village in ...
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