Opinion ID: 4584059
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: IJ’s Factual Findings

Text: The IJ made the following factual findings. Asif was born in Peshawar in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). He and his family ran a number of businesses, including a motorbike dealership, a mobile phone shop, and a real estate business. The Pakistani Taliban (TTP) harmed or killed thousands of people in the KP between 2008 and 2014. In particular, prior to the elections in 2013, the TTP sought to harm the more liberal and secular political parties, including the Awami National Party (ANP). The IJ found that, in response to increasing violent attacks by the TTP, the government implemented a plan giving law enforcement and the military broad powers to arrest and detain militants. As of 2016-17, the number and scale of TTP attacks had significantly decreased, but the security situation remained tenuous, and 2 attacks on civilians, government officials, the military, and law enforcement remained common. While in Pakistan, Asif participated in ANP meetings and rallies. He regularly hung banners, handed out stickers, served food, and arranged the logistics of local ANP meetings. Although Asif was affiliated with the ANP, he was not a member of the party. He explained that, as a young person, he was expected to assist the party as a worker. At a certain point, after showing his commitment, he could ask or be invited to become a member. But neither path to membership had occurred by the time he left Pakistan. Asif was close to a local political leader, Alamzeb Khan, who lived next door to Asif’s family and regularly met with Asif’s father and uncle at the family’s home. Khan was a member of the ANP, as well as an elected member of the provincial assembly. Asif had worked on Khan’s election campaign. In 2009, Khan was killed in a bomb attack in front of his house within minutes of leaving Asif’s home. This attack occurred approximately two weeks before Asif left Pakistan. Within weeks of Asif’s arrival in the United States, a note from the TTP was thrown under the door of the family’s mobile phone business in Pakistan. The note accused Asif of being an agent of America and threatened that he would be killed upon returning to Pakistan if he did not stop his work for the Americans. A short while later, the TTP left a second note stating its disapproval of Asif’s family for allowing its sons to travel to the United States and threatening consequences if the family did not make them behave as good Muslims. 3 Asif’s brothers also received threatening phone calls from men claiming to be TTP members. The calls were made to the mobile phone shop’s business line and to Asif’s cell phone that he left in Pakistan when he traveled to the United States. The callers threatened Asif and his family with harm if Asif did not immediately return to Pakistan and demanded that Asif be handed over to the TTP upon his return. On one occasion, a caller mentioned Asif’s ANP affiliation. These calls continued until at least the summer of 2011. In March 2010, men claiming to be members of the TTP assaulted one of Asif’s brothers. The attackers threatened to harm him further if Asif did not return to Pakistan. TTP members also stopped Asif’s father in the market to ask when Asif would return to Pakistan. They continued to follow his father until eight or ten months before Asif’s removal hearing in 2017.