Court Opinion

ID: 9406836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-04 00:00:41.715115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:33.526943
License: Public Domain

Case: 21-60850         Document: 00516808290               Page: 1       Date Filed: 07/03/2023

             United States Court of Appeals
                  for the Fifth Circuit                                     United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                     Fifth Circuit

                                       ____________                                FILED
                                                                                July 3, 2023
                                        No. 21-60850
                                                                               Lyle W. Cayce
                                      Summary Calendar                              Clerk
                                      ____________

   Mahesh Budhathok,

                                                                                       Petitioner,

                                              versus

   Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General,

                                                                                    Respondent.
                      ______________________________

                         Petition for Review of an Order of the
                             Board of Immigration Appeals
                               Agency No. A209 874 736
                      ______________________________

   Before King, Higginson, and Willett, Circuit Judges.
   Stephen A. Higginson, Circuit Judge:*
         Mahesh Budhathok1 petitions for review of the dismissal by the Board
   of Immigration Appeals (BIA) of his appeal from the denial by the
   Immigration Judge (IJ) of his application for asylum, withholding of removal,
   and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). He has failed
   to raise, and therefore abandoned, any challenge to the rejection of his CAT
         _____________________
         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
         1
             The petitioner’s brief clarifies that the correct spelling of his name is Budhathoki.
Case: 21-60850     Document: 00516808290          Page: 2   Date Filed: 07/03/2023

                                   No. 21-60850

   claim and withholding of removal claim. See Soadjede v. Ashcroft, 324 F.3d
   830, 833 (5th Cir. 2003) (per curiam).
          Asylum may be granted to “an alien who is unable or unwilling to
   return to his home country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of
   persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a
   particular social group, or political opinion.” Zhang v. Gonzales, 432 F.3d
   339, 344 (5th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). An
   applicant may qualify for asylum either because he has suffered past
   persecution or because he has a well-founded fear of future persecution.
   Sanchez-Amador v. Garland, 30 F.4th 529, 533 (5th Cir. 2022). In either case,
   where the applicant’s alleged persecutors are “non-government actors, [the
   applicant] must also establish that the authorities [would be] unable or
   unwilling to control them.” Id. (cleaned up); see Bertrand v. Garland, 36
   F.4th 627, 631 (5th Cir. 2022); Tesfamichael v. Gonzales, 469 F.3d 109, 113
   (5th Cir. 2006). And “[a] finding of a well-founded fear of persecution is
   negated if the applicant can avoid persecution by relocating to another part
   of his home country.” Munoz-Granados v. Barr, 958 F.3d 402, 407 (5th Cir.
   2020) (citation omitted).
          Because the petitioner fails to challenge the BIA’s determination that
   he did not establish past persecution, he has abandoned any argument on that
   point. See Soadjede, 324 F.3d at 833.
          In denying the petitioner’s asylum claim, the BIA determined that he
   had “not established a well-founded fear of future persecution” for two
   reasons. First, the BIA decided that he had “not demonstrated [that] he
   could not reasonably relocate within Nepal to avoid harm.” Second, the BIA
   concluded that he had “not shown that he fears harm at the hands of the
   government or a group that the government is unable or unwilling to
   control.”

                                            2
Case: 21-60850        Document: 00516808290              Page: 3       Date Filed: 07/03/2023

                                         No. 21-60850

           On appeal, the petitioner only challenges the BIA’s determination
   that he had not met his burden with respect to relocation. He states that the
   “one sole issue in this appeal” is “whether the BIA erred, as a matter of law,
   in affirming the IJ’s determination that [he] could safely relocate within his
   home country.” And he erroneously asserts that “[t]he BIA did not state
   any other grounds for concluding that [the petitioner] did not fear future
   persecution.” In accordance with these statements, the petitioner’s brief
   only discusses relocation and does not address whether the Nepalese
   government would be unable or unwilling to control his alleged persecutors.
           The Government argues that the petitioner waived “any challenge to
   the [BIA’s] unable or unwilling determination,” which “is dispositive.” We
   agree that the petitioner forfeited any challenge to this determination. 2 See
   United States v. Maes, 961 F.3d 366, 377 (5th Cir. 2020). And this forfeiture
   is dispositive of the petitioner’s claim, because to establish a well-founded
   fear of future persecution, he must establish a fear of harm “inflicted either
   by the government or by private actors whom the government is unable or
   unwilling to control.” Bertrand, 36 F.4th at 631 (internal quotation marks
   and citation omitted); see Tesfamichael, 469 F.3d at 113.

           _____________________
           2
             At most, in his reply, the petitioner points to two sentences in the statement of
   the case in his opening brief: “The Maoist leader was elected the Prime Minister of Nepal
   and other Maoists hold powerful positions in the government. Members of the Maoist
   party as well as Maoist affiliated groups attack and target members of democratic
   opposition groups, such as the [Nepali Congress Party].” These sentences—which do not
   appear in the argument section of the brief and do not address why, under the relevant legal
   standard, the harm inflicted on petitioner is “by the government or by private actors whom
   the government is unable or unwilling to control,” Bertrand, 36 F.4th at 631 (internal
   quotation marks and citation omitted)— are not enough to adequately brief and preserve
   the issue. In any event, based on these two sentences, the petitioner has not met his burden
   of showing that “the evidence is so compelling that no reasonable factfinder could reach a
   contrary conclusion” as to the unable or unwilling determination. Chen v. Gonzales, 470
   F.3d 1131, 1134 (5th Cir. 2006).

                                                    3
Case: 21-60850     Document: 00516808290          Page: 4   Date Filed: 07/03/2023

                                   No. 21-60850

           For those reasons, the BIA did not err in dismissing the appeal of the
   IJ’s denial of relief, and the petition for review is DENIED.

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