Case ID: f-appx_573/html/0668-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Bindu NEUPANE, Petitioner, v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 10-72263.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted May 16, 2014.
    
    Filed May 20, 2014.
    Ashwani K. Bhakhri, Joseph John Si-guenza, Esquire, Law Offices of Ashwani K. Bhakhri, Burlingame, CA, for Petitioner.
    Gary J. Newkirk, Trial, OIL, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, Chief Counsel Ice, Office of the Chief Counsel Department of Homeland Security, San Francisco, CA, for Respondent.
    Before: McKEOWN and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and SELNA, District Judge.
    
    
      
       The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
    
      
       The Honorable James V. Selna, District Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, sitting by designation.
    
   MEMORANDUM

Bindu Neupane, a citizen and native of Nepal, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’s (“BIA”) final order dismissing her appeal from an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we deny Neupane’s petition for review.

Substantial evidence supports the agency’s determination that Neupane did not demonstrate past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of a protected ground. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A); INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481-84, 112 S.Ct. 812, 117 L.Ed.2d 38 (1992). Despite any anti-Maoist political opinion Neupane might hold, the record does not compel the conclusion that she was or will be persecuted by the Maoists on account of her political opinion or any other protected ground. Accordingly, Neupane has failed to establish eligibility for asylum. See Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. at 482-83, 112 S.Ct. 812. Having failed to establish eligibility for asylum, Neupane necessarily fails to meet the more stringent requirements for withholding of removal. See Zehatye v. Gonzales, 453 F.3d 1182, 1190 (9th Cir.2006).

Neupane’s CAT claim is similarly unavailing because nothing in the record compels the conclusion that she will more likely than not be tortured at the instigation of, or with the acquiescence of, the Nepalese government if returned to Nepal. See Delgado v. Holder, 648 F.3d 1095, 1108 (9th Cir.2011) (en banc).

PETITION DENIED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.