In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 10-1932

SHERBANO MOOSA,

Petitioner,

v.

ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., Attorney General

of the United States,

Respondent.

Petition for Review of an Order

 of the Board of Immigration Appeals.

No. A076 775 172

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 23, 2010—DECIDED MAY 5, 2011

Before CUDAHY, FLAUM, and WOOD, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Circuit Judge. Sherbano Moosa, a citizen of

Pakistan, entered the United States on a visitor’s visa

in 1995 and remained after her visa expired. Moosa

was eventually ordered removed, but she apparently

ignored that command and remained in the country.

Nearly seven years later, Moosa filed a motion to reopen

her proceedings with the Board of Immigration Appeals

(“Board”). In her motion, Moosa argued that “changed
2 No. 10-1932

country conditions” in Pakistan made her eligible for

asylum and warranted reopening her case. Moosa also

asked the Board to reopen her case on its own motion.

Finding insufficient evidence of changed circumstances

and a failure to present a prima facie case for asylum,

the Board denied Moosa’s motion and declined to

reopen the proceedings on its own. Moosa now petitions

this court for review of the Board’s decision. She offers

three grounds for relief: first, that the Board abused its

discretion by denying her motion in a manner that exceeded its authority; second, that it used procedures

that fell below constitutional due process standards;

and third, that it committed legal error as it analyzed

her evidence of changed conditions. None of these is

enough to override the Board’s broad authority here,

however, and so we deny the petition for review.

I

Moosa legally entered the United States on a 6-month

non-immigrant visa in June 1995, but, as we noted, she

overstayed that term. Seeking to become a lawful permanent resident, but without much more than this intention, Moosa applied for an adjustment of status to that

of permanent resident three years later. Moosa’s application, however, offered no reason that the governing laws

would recognize for granting this relief, and not surprisingly, her application was denied. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1255-

58. The legacy Immigration and Naturalization Service

instituted removal proceedings against Moosa in 2000.
No. 10-1932 3

At her removal hearing before an Immigration Judge

(“IJ”), Moosa’s lawyer advised her to invoke her Fifth

Amendment right to remain silent. Consistent with

this questionable counsel, see INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468

U.S. 1032, 1038-39 (1984) (holding that a “deportation

proceeding is a purely civil action,” not a “criminal”

proceeding), Moosa refused to answer even the IJ’s

most basic questions, covering such topics as her

country of origin, her initial reasons for visiting the

United States, her reasons for pursuing permanent residency, and her marital status. Stymied, the IJ turned

to the information in Moosa’s adjustment of status application; this made her removability obvious. Indeed,

Moosa’s attorney spoke up on one point and asserted

that Moosa had no fear of returning to Pakistan. The

IJ entered a removal order, and—on the basis of the lawyer’s comment—noted that Moosa had no desire to seek

other relief, such as asylum, withholding of removal, or

a claim under Article 3 of the U.N. Convention Against

Torture. The Board affirmed without opinion in 2002.

Like many others before her, Moosa remained in the

country despite the removal order. See, e.g., Kucana v.

Holder, 130 S. Ct. 827, 832 (2010); Liang v. Holder, 626

F.3d 983, 984 (7th Cir. 2010); Cheng Chen v. Gonzales,

498 F.3d 758, 759 (7th Cir. 2007). Almost seven years

later, and represented by new counsel, Moosa filed a

motion to reopen her proceedings in 2009. Such

a motion ordinarily must be filed within 90 days, but

Moosa argued that changed circumstances in Pakistan

should exempt her from the time requirement. See

8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7). To succeed, Moosa needed to point
4 No. 10-1932

to evidence materially related to her asylum application and unavailable or undiscoverable at the time of

her initial hearing in 2001. Id. And, to be eligible for

asylum, Moosa would ultimately need to establish her

status as a “refugee” in Pakistan, which requires demonstrating a well-founded fear of future persecution attributable to her “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B).

Moosa argued that if forced to return to Pakistan she

faced a serious risk of persecution on account of her

membership in the social group of “single Westernized

women.” Moosa remains a committed Muslim, but she

maintains that, after 15 years of continuous residency

in the United States, she has come to identify with the

social and political beliefs of Western women. She holds

pro-democratic values; she believes herself entitled to

equal treatment with men; and she is accustomed to

exercising broad personal choice. Citing an influx of

Taliban forces in the northwest region of Pakistan near

the Swat Valley in 2009 (an area approximately 900 miles

from Moosa’s home)—and an attendant spread of strict

Sharia law there—Moosa argued that mistreatment of

women and other persons with Western values has escalated. Moosa further claimed that women like her

are frequently harmed by religious leaders in the

Taliban, who force women to adhere to different social

roles than men, afford women fewer rights, and subject

them to physical violence if these women do not adequately comply with the tenets of Islam as understood

in Sharia law or are perceived as opposing it. Moosa
No. 10-1932 5

believes that her time in the United States has made

her Westernization and opposition to certain tenets of

Islam either obvious or easily imputed to her, and thus

that she has a legitimate fear of persecution based on

her social group.

For support, Moosa pointed to a variety of sources:

news articles from 2008 and 2009 describing the rise of

the Taliban and spread of Sharia law in and around

the Swat Valley; reports from human rights groups describing conditions faced generally by women in

Pakistan (which are especially tough for those in rural

regions); a U.S. Department of State report from 2001 describing the Taliban’s “war against women” in Afghanistan; and the State Department’s 2008 human rights

report and its July 2009 travel warning for Pakistan.

Moosa also submitted an affidavit personally describing

her fear of persecution.

In an opinion signed by one member, the Board denied

Moosa’s motion, citing two grounds. First, it found that

Moosa failed to show changed circumstances because

the record was barren of any material, either in her

current motion or the administrative record generally,

that would establish country conditions in Pakistan at

the time of her 2001 hearing. Second, the Board found

that Moosa could not make out a prima facie case

for asylum because the evidence she submitted was

too speculative to demonstrate a well-founded fear of

persecution. In explaining its second finding, the Board

discussed the substance of Moosa’s evidence but noted

that Moosa failed to point to “specific passages” in
6 No. 10-1932

her numerous exhibits “that actually corroborate[] her

sweeping assertion regarding the treatment of single

women in Pakistan.” The Board did not mention Moosa’s

affidavit. It ultimately concluded that Moosa’s motion

did not demonstrate changed circumstances and denied

her request for asylum as untimely. Finding no exceptional circumstances, and again pointing to Moosa’s

failure to make out a prima facie showing for asylum, the

Board also denied Moosa’s request to reopen her proceedings as a matter of its discretion. This petition followed.

II

Before this court, Moosa argues that the Board abused

its discretion in denying her motion to reopen. But in

light of the Board’s broad discretion to deny a motion to

reopen, see Kucana, 130 S. Ct. at 834, we will not reverse

the Board’s decision “unless it was made without a

rational explanation, inexplicably departed from established policies, or rested on an impermissible basis such

as invidious discrimination against a particular race or

group.” Mansour v. INS, 230 F.3d 902, 907 (7th Cir. 2000)

(internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

A

Moosa first argues that the Board exceeded its authority

when it looked beyond the question whether she could

show changed circumstances in Pakistan and took a peek

at the merits of her case for asylum. In Moosa’s view,
No. 10-1932 7

the Board was not permitted to allow any spillover from

one issue to the other; instead, she insists, it had to keep

them strictly separated and consider only whether the

evidence she submitted is “based on changed country

conditions” in Pakistan, and whether that evidence

is “material and was not available and would not

have been discovered or presented at the previous proceeding.” 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(ii); see 8 C.F.R.

§ 1003.2(c)(3)(ii). She notes in this connection that the

requirements for demonstrating eligibility for asylum

fall under a different statutory section, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b).

Moosa’s theory makes no sense as a matter of sound

agency procedure, and (unfortunately for Moosa) it is

also at direct odds with the law. After analyzing

the evidence presented to it and providing a rational explanation, the Board may deny a motion to reopen by

finding that “the movant has not established a prima

facie case for the underlying substantive relief sought.”

INS v. Abudu, 485 U.S. 94, 104 (1988); accord INS v. Doherty,

502 U.S. 314, 323 (1992); Mansour, 230 F.3d at 907. In

fact, the regulations on which Moosa relies directly

refute her position: “The Board has discretion to deny

a motion to reopen even if the party moving has made

out a prima facie case for relief.” 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(a).

This is an entirely reasonable way to run things. The

Board is required to evaluate whether the alleged

changed circumstances are “material” to an applicant’s

request for asylum. This in turn invites the Board to

determine whether these changes provide the applicant

with a well-founded fear of persecution. We cannot
8 No. 10-1932

imagine the Board’s effectively performing that function, or providing a reasoned basis for why the

asserted changed circumstances alter (or fail to alter) its

assessment of an asylum applicant’s claim, without at

least the option of looking at whether there is a

plausible asylum claim at all. Cf. Zhu v. Holder, 622 F.3d

87, 92 (1st Cir. 2010) (noting that an applicant’s failure

to establish a “credible claim for asylum” provided a

basis for determining that “the alleged changes in country

conditions were immaterial”). It is more likely that it

would be an abuse of discretion for the Board to fail to

explain how the evidence of changed circumstances

relates (or fails to relate) to an asylum claim. See Nken v.

Holder, 585 F.3d 818, 822-23 (4th Cir. 2009); Gebreeyesus v.

Gonzales, 482 F.3d 952, 954-56 (7th Cir. 2007). Accordingly,

when the Board’s decision is supported by a rational

explanation, we have found no abuse of discretion when

it has looked at a movant’s prima facie case for asylum

in evaluating her motion to reopen. See, e.g., Liang, 626

F.3d at 991; Awad v. Ashcroft, 328 F.3d 336, 340-42 (7th

Cir. 2003). Doing so here was not beyond the Board’s

authority or an abuse of discretion.

B

Moosa next argues that the Board denied her constitutional right to due process when it dismissed her motion

to reopen. In Moosa’s view, the Board deprived her of a

meaningful opportunity to be heard by inadequately

analyzing the evidence she included. Aside from contradicting her prior claim that the Board may not analyze
No. 10-1932 9

this evidence at all, Moosa’s due process argument,

which we review de novo, is a non-starter. For support,

Moosa cites cases that discuss the right to due process

during a removal proceeding. E.g., Floroiu v. Gonzales,

481 F.3d 970, 974 (7th Cir. 2007); Kerciku v. INS, 314 F.3d

913, 917-19 (7th Cir. 2003) (per curiam). Moosa is not

saying, however, that her initial proceedings violated

her due process rights. She challenges only the Board’s

discretionary decision to deny her motion to reopen

those proceedings. Doherty, 502 U.S. at 323; 8 C.F.R.

§ 1003.2(a). But, because Moosa has no liberty or

property interest in obtaining discretionary relief,

Iglesias v. Mukasey, 540 F.3d 528, 531 (7th Cir. 2008), her

“right to due process does not extend to proceedings that

provide only . . . such relief.” Hamdan v. Gonzales, 425

F.3d 1051, 1061 (7th Cir. 2005).

C

For her final argument, Moosa re-brands her complaint that the Board failed adequately to analyze the

evidence as a claim of legal error. See Iglesias, 540 F.3d at

531. Though the Board’s discretion to deny a motion to

reopen is broad, that discretion is not unlimited; its

decisions must be supported by a reasoned explanation

that correctly reflects the law. Such an explanation is

impossible if the Board “completely ignores the evidence

that a petitioner presents,” id., and we have consistently

found an abuse of discretion where the Board ignores

or misapplies an applicant’s evidence. See, e.g., Joseph v.

Holder, 579 F.3d 827, 828, 830 (7th Cir. 2009) (discussing
10 No. 10-1932

prior remand); Kebe v. Gonzales, 473 F.3d 855, 857-58 (7th

Cir. 2007) (collecting cases).

As we noted above, the Board denied Moosa’s motion

to reopen on two separate grounds: the lack of evidence

of “changed” circumstances, and the failure to support

a prima facie case for asylum.

The Board’s reasoning on the first ground does not

mention the rather unusual posture of this case, which

presents a request to reopen a proceeding for purposes

of seeking asylum where the earlier proceeding did not

involve asylum (and thus, understandably, did not

develop facts pertinent to such a claim). The Board noted

that Moosa’s motion included information related to

current conditions in Pakistan but was faulty because it

included no description of country conditions at the

time of her initial hearing in 2001. The Board reasoned

that without this prior background it could not derive a

baseline for comparing circumstances to determine

whether conditions had changed. Moosa responds that

the evidence she submitted described events which took

place in 2008 and 2009. By definition, these events

could not have taken place before her initial hearing. We

have no quarrel with Moosa’s assertion that an applicant

need not have a prior asylum application on the books

to provide the Board with information of “changed”

circumstances. But this does not help her here. Though

she could not rely upon documents available at the time

of her 2001 hearing, nothing prevented Moosa from

supporting her motion to reopen with country reports,

affidavits, or other information describing conditions in
No. 10-1932 11

Pakistan in 2001 that became available after the hearing.

If the government in power in 2009 has a policy of persecuting a certain group, for example, one can point out

when that group took over. If it was some time after

2001, that would be evidence supporting a finding of

changed circumstances.

We readily acknowledge that there is nothing wrong

in principle with circumstantial evidence of changed

circumstances. The problem for Moosa is that her circumstantial evidence was incomplete. She submitted a

2009 State Department travel warning that militant

groups promised to “step up attacks against both civilian

and government targets in Pakistan’s cities,” and that

reported on events transpiring “in the last 14 months.” She

also submitted a 2008 State Department human rights

report that includes broader background information

on changes in how Pakistani women have been treated

over the past decade; in 2006, for example, the government passed the Women’s Protection Act, which prevented “Koranic punishments” for violations of Sharia

law “including amputation and death by stoning.” But

this evidence still fails to provide a baseline for comparison. Something like a State Department report from

2002 would have qualified as evidence that was unavailable in 2001, yet it could have furnished a basis for

finding that matters were changing for the worse.

Even if we were to find that the Board gave insufficient weight to the circumstantial evidence Moosa did

present, we would still have to reject Moosa’s petition.

The Board’s alternate ground for decision lies com-
12 No. 10-1932

fortably within its discretion. In finding that Moosa

failed to present a prima facie case for asylum, the Board

pointed out that she submitted evidence only of broad

social strife in Pakistan—that is, the rise of the Taliban

and the adoption of Sharia law—which occurred nearly

900 miles away from her hometown of Karachi. On the

basis of these facts, the Board found that Moosa’s

asserted fear of persecution on the basis of being a single

Westernized woman in Pakistan was too speculative to

warrant relief.

The reasons cited by the Board and its conclusions are

consistent with our repeated reminder that “general

conditions of hardship that affect entire populations . . .

are not persecution.” Ahmed v. Gonzales, 467 F.3d 669,

673 (7th Cir. 2006); see also Sharif v. INS, 87 F.3d 932,

935 (7th Cir. 1996) (“[H]arsh conditions shared by an

entire population do not amount to persecution. Nor

does punishment which results from violating a

country’s laws of general applicability, absent some

showing that the punishment is being administered for

a nefarious purpose.”). On a different, more particularized record, the Board may well come to the opposite conclusion. We are obviously not saying that genuine problems do not exist for women like Moosa. But

the responsibility for drawing lines here lies primarily

with the Board, which can act only on the facts put

before it.

We note finally that in reaching its conclusion regarding her prima facie case for asylum, the Board did

not discuss Moosa’s affidavit. It complained that Moosa
No. 10-1932 13

did not refer to “specific passages” that might corroborate

her asylum claim. If the Board had, as Moosa alleges,

ignored important parts of her evidence, we might be

concerned. But our review satisfies us that this is not a

case where the Board completely ignored the substance

of Moosa’s argument regarding her eligibility for asylum. The fact that it did not single out her affidavit

for discussion is not enough to undermine its decision.

See, e.g., Kucana v. Holder, 603 F.3d 394, 395-97 (7th Cir.

2010); Zhao v. Gonzales, 440 F.3d 405, 407 (7th Cir. 2005)

(per curiam).

Accordingly, Moosa’s petition for review is DENIED.

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