NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________ No. 20

- 2092

______ BALDEV SINGH, AKA Balden Singh ,

Petitioner

v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

____________________________________ On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals ( A 063

- 062

- 910 ) Immigration Judge: Kuyomars Q. Golparvar

____________________________________
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)

January 14 , 202 1 Before: AMBRO, KRAUSE , and PHIPPS , Circuit Judges

.

( Filed: January 25, 2021 )

___________ OPINION *

___________

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full C ourt and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent.2

PHIPPS, Circuit Judge

. Through an arranged marriage, Baldev Singh , a native and citizen of India , wed his cousin in India in 2011. The bride, a United States citizen residing in Pennsylvania , traveled to India for the wedding and returned to the United States about a month afterwards. After completing immigration paperwork, Singh obtained an immigra nt visa and entered the United States as a lawful permanent resident three years later

. U pon Singh’s arrival, the honeymoon was over

. He alleges that his wife and her extended family required him to work fifteen hours a day without pay at a family

opera ted gas station and that he was otherwise unfed and locked in his room without his cellphone . Singh further claims that he was physically and mentally abused by his wife and extended family in several different ways

– including the fact that he survived o nly by eating potato chips from the gas station. Nonetheless, Sin g h obtain ed and install ed a hidden camera at the gas station to observe an affair that his wife was having with her sister’s husband. When Singh confronted his wife , accusing her of an affair and a prior fake marriage, she and her sister’s husband threatened to kill him

. Th e y also threatened Singh and his family members in India because he refused to arrang e for his sister to marry into their extended family.
But there is more to the story. In 2016, Singh was convicted in the Berks County Court of Common Pleas of several crimes: robbery, sexual assault, intimidation of witnesses or victims, issuing terroristic threats, stalking, and two counts of simple assault. Based on thos e convictions, the Department of Homeland Security began removal proceedings. I n a hearing before an Immigration Judge , Singh averred that he would be3

killed by his wife ’s extended family if he returned to India

. At the time of the hearing, however, he h ad not spoken with any of the people who threatened him for approximately five years, and he did not know their whereabouts. Nonetheless, b ased on those threats, Singh sought deferral of removal under the Convention against Torture (“CAT”). The Immigration Judge denied Singh’s CAT deferral request and ordered his removal. To qualify for CAT deferral, a petitioner must first establish that “it is more likely than not that he or she w ould be tortured if removed to the proposed country of removal.” 8 C.F.R. § 1 208.16(c)(2) (setting the standard for CAT withholding); see also id. § 1 208.17(a) (applying the CAT withholding standard to CAT deferral)

. And here, the Im migration Judge determined that Singh failed to establish such a likelihood of
torture in India. Several facts led to that conclusion: Singh had never been tortured in India before; the police in India are not entirely ineffective; the people whom Singh f ears are in the United States; and the threats that Singh report ed occurred several years ago , and Singh has not been harmed in the meantime

. Ultimately, the Immigration Judge explained that “[r]eceiving a threatening call or his family receiving a threatening call
f a l ls far short of torture and also falls far short of the more likely than not standard.” IJ Decision at 5 ( AR69 )

. To dispute that ruling , Singh appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals

. The
BIA adopt ed many of the I mmigration J udge’s findings and dismissed the appeal because Singh did not prove the likelihood of future torture needed for CAT deferral.4

Singh timely petition ed this Court for review of that final order , a rguing that the
B IA committed several errors. In exercising jurisdiction over his petition , s ee 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1), we review Singh’s factual challenges to the BIA ’s decision ( as well as the referenced or incorporated portions of the Immigration Judge ’s decision ) for substantial evidence

. S ee Martinez v. Att’y Gen. , 978 F.3d 860, 871 n.11 (3d Cir. 2020) . Under that standard, in the context of claims for CAT relief, once an agency considers “all evidence relevant to the possibility of future torture,” 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c)(3); see also id. § 1208.17(a) ( incorporating the standard for CAT deferral), its “administrative findings
of fact are conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B ); see also Nasrallah v. Barr , 140 S. Ct. 1683, 1692 (2020). Singh challenge s the BIA’s conclusion that , more likely than not , he would not be tortured upon return to India. He argues first that the Immigration Judge and BIA failed to consider evidence of his past torture, which may bear on the likelihood of future
torture , s ee 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16( c)(3)(i). S pecifically , he claims that both decisions ignored evidence of the abuse and threats he received from his wife and h er extended family while in the United States

. T he administrative record does not reveal such dereliction. The Immigration Judge expressly considered this evidence , and after also finding that Singh was never tortured in India, the Immigration Judge conc luded that Singh did not meet his burden of showing a likelihood of future torture. On administrative appeal, t he BIA similarly accounted for that same evidence. Thus, the administrative record disproves Singh’s claim of failed consideration of past torture.5

Singh also argues that the BIA ignored his evidence that Indian authorities would acquiesce to any torture that he would experience

. But that acquiescence argument is immaterial due to the BIA’s finding that he would not likely be tortured in India. Even still , the only evidence he presented of gross, flagrant, or mass human rights violations,

see 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c)(3)(ii i ), was the St ate Department’s 2018 Human Rights Report
for India

. T he BIA accounted for the report expressly and found that it did not stand for the proposition that Singh advocated. Rather, the BIA endorse d the Immigration Judge’s
conclusion that “ the evidence indic ates that Indian police, albeit imperfectly, address criminality in India and punish officials who engage in corruption.” BIA Decision at 3 (AR5) (citing IJ Decision at 5

– 6 (AR69

– 70)). Finally, Singh contends that the agency failed to account for his tes timony regarding his inability to reasonably and safely relocate with in different regions of India ,

see 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c)(3)(ii)

. But Singh overlooks the BIA’s conclusion that, more likely than not, he would not be tortured anywhere in India. That finding makes
unnecessary the region

- by

- region analysis that Singh claims is missing

. See INS v. Bagamasbad , 429 U.S. 24, 25 (1976) (“As a general rule courts and agencies are not required to make findings on issues the decision of which is unnecessary to the results they reach.”). In sum, because Singh did not establish a likelihood of future torture, he does not qualify for CAT deferral , and w e will therefore deny his petition.