NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _____________ No. 19-1135 _____________ YUSUPHA SANNEH, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent ______________ On Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (A208-334-342) Immigration Judge: Honorable Leo A. Finston ______________ Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) October 21, 2019 ______________ Before: GREENAWAY, JR., PORTER, and COWEN, Circuit Judges. (Opinion Filed: July 17, 2020) ______________ OPINION* ______________ GREENAWAY, JR., Circuit Judge. * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. Petitioner Yusupha Sanneh applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), claiming, in part, that, if he returned to his home country, he would be persecuted. An Immigration Judge (“IJ”) and the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) denied his claim. Sanneh filed a petition for review with this Court. Sanneh’s failure to exhaust a dispositive issue before the BIA means the issue is waived, and the existence of substantial evidence supporting the agency’s findings requires us to deny his petition. I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND Sanneh—a native and citizen of the Republic of The Gambia (“The Gambia”)— entered the United States in September 2014, as a non-immigrant foreign representative, accompanying then-President Yahya Jammeh to the United Nations, as an orderly in his household staff. Once in New York, Sanneh took the opportunity to “abscond[]” from then-President Jammeh, who was allegedly “paranoid and suspicious of all individuals[,]” and who purportedly “threatened to cut [Sanneh’s] head” off and send him to jail. A.R. 87, 403. In early 2015, Sanneh applied for asylum and withholding of removal, under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) § 208, 8 U.S.C. § 1158, and § 241(b)(3), 8 U.S.C. § 1231, as well as protection under CAT, fearing that he would be “executed [if he returned to The Gambia] . . . know[ing] firsthand that [then-President Jammeh] holds grudges and also what harm he is capable of inflicting to people he perceives as his enemies.” A.R. 383. Sanneh also feared the new government, which was comprised of 2 Mandinkas, as he is a member of the Jola ethnic group and thus believed the new government would “make [him] disappear.” A.R. 123. In 2018, the Department of Homeland Security commenced removal proceedings, asserting Sanneh was removable pursuant to INA § 237(a)(1)(C)(i), 8 U.S.C. § 1227, for having failed to maintain compliance with the conditions of his non-immigrant status. On June 8, 2018, an IJ denied Sanneh’s applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection. The IJ detailed three reasons for his asylum decision: (1) Sanneh’s participation in past persecution (i.e., the “persecutor bar”); (2) alternatively, assuming that the persecutor bar did not apply, failure to show prior persecution “on account of a protected ground”;1 and (3) failure to establish a well-founded fear of future persecution, as there was insufficient evidence that the “new government would persecute [Sanneh] for his political opinion or ...
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