Navdeep Singh v. LORETTA E. LYNCH, Attorney General

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
NAVDEEP SINGH,
Petitioner,
v.
LORETTA E. LYNCH, Attorney General,
Respondent.
No. 13-73121
Agency No. A201-295-480
MEMORANDUM*
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Argued and Submitted March 18, 2016
San Francisco, California
Before: BYBEE and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges and KORMAN,** Senior District
Judge.
Navdeep Singh petitions from the Board of Immigration Appeals’s decision
denying him asylum and relief under the Convention Against Torture. The BIA
held that Singh did not prove that he was persecuted on account of a protected
FILED
APR 27 2016
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
** The Honorable Edward R. Korman, Senior District Judge for the U.S.
District Court for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.

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activity. We agree and deny Singh’s petition as to his asylum claim. As to his
CAT claim, however, we grant Singh’s petition and remand back to the BIA.
A. Substantial Evidence Supports the BIA’s Denial of Asylum
We review legal questions de novo, and we review the BIA’s factual
findings for substantial evidence. Khudaverdyan v. Holder, 778 F.3d 1101, 1105
(9th Cir. 2015). We may only reverse the BIA’s decision if Singh shows that “the
evidence compels the conclusion that the asylum decision was incorrect.” Gu v.
Gonzales, 454 F.3d 1014, 1018 (9th Cir. 2006).
Singh argues that the record evidence compels the conclusion that he was
persecuted on account of his political opinion. He relies on evidence showing that
he was attacked by members of the Congress party in India because he refused to
join their party. Singh argues that in refusing to join the Congress party he was
expressing a political opinion—and that by being attacked for this refusal, he was
thus persecuted on account of his political opinion. We disagree.
Singh must prove that his persecutors attacked him because they perceived
he was expressing a political opinion. Regalado-Escobar v. Holder, 717 F.3d 724,
730 (9th Cir. 2013). Crucially, we have held that an applicant does not necessarily
express a political opinion by refusing to join a political party. Id.; see also I.N.S.
v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 483 (1992) (rejecting argument that “not taking
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sides with [a] political faction is itself the affirmative expression of a political
opinion”). After all, in the mind of his persecutors, the applicant may have refused
to join a political party or faction for reasons unrelated to political ideology (such
as an unwillingness to personally participate in the parties’ activities).
Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. at 483.
Instead, the applicant must show not only that he was persecuted for refusing
to join a party, but also that his persecutors viewed this refusal to be political: a
“principled opposition” to the party or its methods. Regalado, 717 F.3d at 730;
see also id. (holding that a refusal to join the FMLN party would only qualify as a
protected political opinion if it amounted to “opposition to the [group’s]
ideology”). In other words, refusing to join a party is not the same as expressing
ideological opposition to that party—and we have held that only the latter is
protected political opinion for purposes of asylum. Id.
The BIA held that Singh failed to prove that his persecutors perceived his
refusal to join them as a political opinion, and the record does not compel us to
conclude that the BIA erred. There is little evidence in the record indicating that
Singh’s persecutors ascribed political meaning to his refusal to join them. Singh
testified that he never told his persecutors of his political ideology or that he
opposed his attackers’ party or ideology. There is little evidence Singh’s
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persecutors otherwise knew of his political beliefs or had reason to attach political
meaning to his refusal to join them. Nor did Singh produce evidence showing that
Congress party members generally perceive any refusal to join them as motivated
by opposition to the party’s ideology or practices. From his persecutors’
perspective, Singh may have refused to join the Congress party because of the
violent treatment he received at the hands of certain party members, or because he
did not want to personally participate in the types of violence used against him.
While it could be that Singh’s persecutors did in fact attack him because
they perceived his refusal to be politically charged—Singh did not provide
evidence compelling that conclusion. Because the BIA’s determination is
supported by substantial evidence, we must deny Singh’s petition as to his asylum
claim.
B. Singh’s CAT Claim Should be Remanded
The parties agree that Singh’s petition should be granted in part so as to
remand his CAT claim back to the BIA for further consideration. Where evidence
in the record would be probative to the CAT analysis but the BIA does not indicate
how it viewed or weighed the evidence, we have often remanded for a fuller
explanation of the agency’s reasoning. See, e.g., Madrigal v. Holder, 716 F.3d
499, 508–09 (9th Cir. 2013); Cole v. Holder, 659 F.3d 762, 773 (9th Cir. 2011).
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The IJ and BIA ignored probative evidence in the record, such as the fact that law
enforcement was unwilling to respond when Singh reported the attacks. We thus
remand Singh’s CAT claim for a fuller explanation of the agency’s reasoning.
The petition for review is DENIED as to Singh’s asylum claim, but we
remand back to the BIA Singh’s claim under the Convention Against Torture.
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