Opinion ID: 3064625
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The IJ’s failure to make a government inability

Text: finding Turning to the second requirement for asylum — whether Sinha had demonstrated that the Fijian government was “unwilling or unable” to control his attackers — the IJ engaged in a brief and ultimately inconclusive discussion: [T]he [Immigration] Court is not satisfied in this particular case that the government in power does not make an attempt to control such incidents, nor under the circumstances are they unable to control the incidents with the possible exception of the incident which got totally out of control in May of 2000. Eventually, the military did have to step in and establish order. But in this particular case, I am not satisfied that the respondent has established that he has been persecuted on account of any one or more of the five . . . [protected grounds]. SINHA v. HOLDER 4579 This passage is not a model of coherent reasoning, to be sure. Perhaps we could read it as articulating a finding that Sinha failed to show the Fijian government was “unwilling or unable” to control his attackers. Avetovo-Elisseva v. INS, 213 F.3d 1192, 1198 (9th Cir. 2000). If that is what the IJ meant to say, he provided no discernible reason for reaching such a conclusion, despite his recognition that events in Fiji “got totally out of control in May of 2000” — the first month in which Sinha’s major incidents of mistreatment occurred. Nor did the IJ account for Sinha’s testimony about his negative interactions with the Fijian police, or the relevant countryconditions evidence concerning the government’s general failure to control the attacks on Indo-Fijians that occurred in and shortly after May of 2000, and its slow response to complaints by injured parties. See Krotova v. Gonzales, 416 F.3d 1080, 1087 (9th Cir. 2005).4 [7] But we think the better reading of this passage is that the IJ simply declined to decide whether Sinha had shown that the Fijian government was unwilling or unable to control his attackers. Because he had already found that Sinha failed to establish that the harm he suffered was “on account of” his race or any other protected ground, the IJ considered it unnecessary to reach a government inability finding, and rested his denial of asylum on the nexus finding alone. For the reasons we explained above, that nexus finding cannot stand, as it is unsupported by substantial evidence. We therefore remand to the agency for a finding as to whether the Fijian government was willing and able to control Sinha’s attackers.