Opinion ID: 1037020
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Khan's Hearing Before the IJ

Text: On November 3, 2010, an IJ conducted a merits hearing in Khan's removal proceedings, at which Khan testified. We describe Khan's testimony and evidence. Khan was born on December 24, 1958, in the village of Shah Dheri, in the Swat district in Pakistan. Khan had a wife and seven children who, at the time of the hearing, had remained in Pakistan but no longer resided in Shah Dheri; instead, they lived with relatives in other towns. The Taliban became active in Khan's area of Pakistan in 2007, while Khan was away working on a ship. When Khan returned to Shah Dheri in January 2008, he found that the Taliban were forcing local residents to cut their hair and grow long beards, and that they were brainwashing young people via radio broadcasts. Khan also stated that the Taliban were kidnapping children to secure ransom money from their families. Khan testified that the Taliban in fact blew up his daughter's school in January 2008. The Taliban believed that girls should not attend school and that English should not be taught in schools. Khan said that he kn[e]w the Taliban was responsible for destroying this school because there is no one else who would have done it. He conceded that the Taliban did not target his daughter's school specifically because his daughter went there. -3- Khan's view was that the Taliban's philosophy was completely wrong and very bad for the future generation. Khan testified that after returning home in January 2008, he started secretly urging his neighbors in the village to make sure not to lose your freedom to Taliban and not to allow your children to be influenced by them. Khan also claimed that he went to the local police station ten to twenty times to report Taliban activities that community members described to him, and that the police initially arrested Taliban members based on this information, but later became ineffective. Khan learned from a friend that the Taliban had held a meeting in a mosque where they discussed plans to blow up the local police station. Upon learning this information, Khan informed to the police and they thanked [him] polite[ly]; the police then called the army, which put that area under surveillance and secure[d] it. Khan conceded that the presence of the army improve[d] the situation in Shah Dheri, though he said the Taliban remained secretly active. Khan testified that after he disclosed this Taliban plot to the police, someone threw a letter attached to a stone at his house. Khan submitted this letter into evidence with a translation; it stated: From: Taliban 02/20/2008 Notice in the name of Siraj Ahmad . . . -4- You are getting informed by this notice and letter. That you do not pay money to local Taliban nor do you feed them for one time meal. And you speak against us. And you are gathering with local police and army and spying on us. Limit your actions, and quit that. If you did not quit that we will bomb you and your children. Then you will know. There is no need for writing more. That is all. FROM TALIBAN COMMANDER SHAH DHERAI Khan testified that the Taliban had learned that he was speaking against them through their many spies, but also stated that he was initially careless in his activities concerning the Taliban, and became more secretive after receiving the letter. Khan took the letter to the police, who attempted to investigate, but they told Khan that without knowing who had sent the letter they could not issue a bench warrant or take other action. Khan claimed that he continued attempting to unite the people and . . . get a group against [the Taliban], but that his activities were ineffective because the people were afraid. On the morning of March 7, 2008, someone threw a grenade at Khan's house. Khan heard a noise, awoke, and found the undetonated grenade, but it did not explode. Khan called the police, who came to his home and collected the undetonated grenade. Later that day, the police filed a report concerning the incident that Khan submitted into evidence. The report recorded that a hand grenade had been recovered from the veranda of Khan's house, and that the grenade was thrown by some unknown terrorists. The report stated that the case had been registered and was being -5- investigated.1 Khan testified that the police took statements from witnesses, but were ultimately unable to catch the perpetrator of this attack because he remained unidentified. Khan testified that after this incident, he concluded that the they [the Taliban] are not leaving me alone. He testified that over there once a person is a target that person is gone, most of the targets are destroyed. Khan therefore decided to rejoin the ship on which he worked, and left Pakistan on April 4, 2008. However, upon arriving in New York en route to rejoining his ship in Bermuda, Khan said he changed [his] mind and decided to stay in the United States because if he rejoined his ship, he would be with the ship for ten months and then [he] would go back home and it would be the same situation. Khan admitted he left his wife and children in Pakistan and came to the United States less than a month after, by his account, his family was put at risk by the undetonated grenade. He said he left because (1) the danger to him was greater than the danger to his family, and (2) if he had not left, his family would have starved. Khan has relatives living in Islamabad and Karachi. He claimed, however, that even if he relocated within Pakistan, the 1 Khan also submitted into evidence a March 8, 2008 article from a newspaper, The News International, which stated that unidentified miscreants hurled a hand grenade at the house of one Siraj Ahmah Khan in Shah Daray area which did not explode and was later defused by the police disposal squad. The IJ stated that this newspaper was not a publication known to the Court and therefore is not a reliable source. -6- Taliban would find him because [t]he entire Pakistan is in the hand of the Taliban. When cross-examined about this statement, Khan backtracked and admitted that the Taliban was secretly active in places such as Islamabad and Karachi, but not in control. He also conceded that the Taliban cannot find [his children] because they are with [his] other relatives in Islamabad. As for Khan's wife, she was living with her brothers in a village five kilometers away from Shah Dheri. Khan testified that on one occasion, when his wife returned to their house in Shah Dheri, callers identifying themselves as commanders of the Taliban called the house four or five times and told her you have to give us money. He also testified that they threaten[ed] her that we would kidnap your kids. Khan stated that the objective of these callers was to get money. According to Khan, a couple months later, the same people shot his house at night.2 Khan did not explain how he knew who shot his house, and he had stated in an affidavit only that his wife found bullet holes on the outside wall of [their] house. Khan also conceded that the area around Shah Dheri was a war zone. Khan testified that after he left Pakistan, the Taliban blew up the police station in Shah Dheri. However, he conceded 2 Khan did not testify that anyone was living in the house at the time of the alleged shooting. -7- that the Pakistani army took control of the Swat area in 2009 and 2010, where they were essentially at war with the Taliban, and that the Taliban was only secretly active staying in the mountains in the area. Khan also admitted that neither his wife nor his children had been physically harmed by the Taliban since he had left Pakistan. Khan submitted, as corroborative evidence, a translated letter from his wife which stated that the Taliban want[ed] to kill [Khan] very soon and that they had threatened Khan's family and several times attacked . . . our home. Importantly, the affidavit did not mention the grenade incident, any threatening telephone calls, their house being shot at night, or that the Taliban had blown up the local police station. Specifically, it did not mention the threat supposedly made to Khan's wife to kidnap her children. Khan attempted to excuse these omissions by claiming that the letter was written by the elderly people of the village who know the situation at the area and [his wife] just signed it. Khan also submitted his own affidavit in support of his application, which failed to mention that the Taliban had blown up the local police station.3 3 When confronted with the fact that his affidavit omitted this fact, Khan incorrectly claimed that he did write that the Taliban bl[e]w up the police station. -8- B. The IJ's Denial of Khan's Application, and the BIA's Affirmance of the IJ's Decision on Appeal On November 3, 2010, the IJ denied Khan's claims for relief. The IJ declined to make an adverse credibility finding regarding Khan, but noted concerns about his credibility.4 The IJ did find that Khan's petition failed because of his failure to provide corroborating evidence or acceptably explain why he had not provided such evidence.5 The IJ also made independent findings to support denial. The IJ noted that though Khan's application was purportedly based on his membership in a particular social group, he had not identified the social group to which he claimed to belong. To the extent Khan's asylum application was based on membership in the group of informants to the police, the IJ concluded that informants do not constitute a particular social group. The IJ also concluded that insofar as Khan's application was based on his anti-Taliban political opinion, he had provided no evidence that the Taliban knew he held this opinion. 4 The IJ noted that neither Khan's affidavit nor Khan's wife's letter mentioned that the Taliban had blown up the Shah Dheri police station, and that Khan's wife's letter did not mention the grenade incident, the threatening phone calls, the threat to kidnap the children, or the shooting of their house. The IJ was not satisfied with Khan's explanation for these omissions, and particularly refused to credit his explanation for why his wife's letter did not mention the Taliban's horrifying threat to kidnap their children. 5 The IJ noted that Khan had failed to provide sufficient evidence corroborating that he was a police informant in Pakistan. -9- Importantly, the IJ's denial of Khan's application for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection was also based on grounds independent of any concerns about Khan's credibility and corroboration. The IJ's decision also went beyond the conclusion that Khan had not shown his past or future mistreatment was or would be on account of his political opinion or membership in a particular social group. The IJ found that even if it credited the respondent's testimony fully, it would find that he is not the victim of past persecution. The IJ concluded that the threatening letter and the undetonated grenade incidents had not resulted in any harm and did not rise to the level of past persecution. In addition, the IJ found that Khan was victimized by the Taliban and not by the government of Pakistan, and that [t]he government does not appear to have been unable or unwilling to control the Taliban. As for Khan's alleged fear of future persecution, the IJ found that Khan did not have an objectively reasonable fear of returning to Pakistan even [i]f his testimony had been credited fully. The IJ noted that Khan's wife and children had remained in Pakistan and had not been harmed. The IJ also stated that in 2009, the Pakistani army had occupied the Swat valley, where Khan's village was located, and that in any event neither Karachi nor Islamabad was controlled by the Taliban, so that Khan could relocate within Pakistan to avoid persecution. Finally, the IJ -10- determined that there was no connection between Khan's fear of future persecution and the Pakistani government. Because Khan's claim for asylum failed, the IJ rejected his claim for withholding of removal. The IJ also denied his CAT claim because [h]is fear extends only to the Taliban. Khan appealed to the BIA, which dismissed his appeal on December 18, 2012. The BIA affirmed the IJ's findings as to credibility and corroboration, and the BIA also affirmed the IJ's determination that the respondent did not establish past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution even assuming that the respondent was credible. The BIA noted the paucity of specific information about Khan's purported assistance to the police and about the motive for any mistreatment by the Taliban. It found that the threatening letter and undetonated grenade thrown at Khan's house did not amount to past persecution, given that Khan did not in response move out immediately, and that Khan's fear of future persecution was not well-founded, since his family continued to live in Pakistan and had not been harmed. The BIA also found that the record does not show that the respondent would not be able to relocate in Pakistan or that the Pakistani government would not assist or protect the respondent from the Taliban. The BIA affirmed the denial of Khan's claims for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection. -11-