Charanjit Singh v. U.S. Attorney General

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-11620
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
CHARANJIT SINGH,
Petitioner,
versus
U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL,
Respondent.
____________________
Petition for Review of a Decision of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Agency No. A201-424-481
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 22-11620
Before J ILL PRYOR , GRANT, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Charanjit Singh seeks review of the Board of Immigration
Appeals’ denial of his motion to reopen his application for asylum.
We deny Singh’s petition for review of the Board’s decision.
I.
Singh is a native and citizen of India. In 2018, he was
detained immediately after entering the United States. He applied
for asylum, claiming that he had been attacked due to his
membership in a Sikh political organization. After an August 2019
hearing, his application was denied by an immigration judge, who
found him not to be credible. That denial was affirmed by the
Board of Immigration Appeals in February 2020, and this Court
denied Singh’s petition for review of the decision of the Board.
See
Singh v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 828 F. App’x 579, 581–82 (11th Cir. 2020).
In March 2021, Singh filed a motion to reopen consideration
of his application with the Board. As Singh himself acknowledged,
his motion was well past the ordinary 90-day filing deadline for a
motion to reopen.
See 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(i); 8 C.F.R.
§ 1003.2(c)(2). But this 90-day limit does not apply to motions to
reopen asylum applications that are “based on changed
circumstances arising in the country of nationality” if “such
evidence is material and was not available and could not have been
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22-11620 Opinion of the Court 3
discovered or presented at the previous hearing.” 8 C.F.R.
§ 1003.2(c)(3)(ii);
see also 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(ii).
Singh argued that this exception to the 90-day filing deadline
applied to his motion to reopen because it was based on changed
circumstances in India. He claimed that there had been an increase
in political violence against Sikh activists in India, and that
members of a rival political party had attacked and raped his wife.
Along with other exhibits, he provided the Board with news
articles about violence in India and affidavits and medical records
about the alleged attack on his wife.
The Board denied Singh’s motion to reopen as untimely. It
concluded that he had not submitted the material evidence of
changed circumstances in India necessary to trigger the exception
to the filing deadline. It noted that Singh’s evidence was
insufficient to show a material change in circumstances in India
since his original petition for asylum was denied. It also noted that
Singh could not overcome the prior adverse credibility finding
against him. And it found that, even if it credited the testimony
that Singh’s wife had been attacked and raped, the alleged rape was
a change in personal circumstances rather than a change in the
country’s circumstances. Singh now asks this Court to reverse the
Board’s denial of his motion to reopen.
II.
We review the Board’s denial of a motion to reopen for
abuse of discretion.
Zhang v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 572 F.3d 1316, 1319
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4 Opinion of the Court 22-11620
(11th Cir. 2009). Motions to reopen are “disfavored,” and we will
only reverse a denial of a motion to reopen if the Board “exercised
its discretion in an arbitrary or capricious manner.”
Id. We review
the Board’s findings of fact under the “highly deferential substantial
evidence test,” meaning that we “view the record evidence in the
light most favorable to the agency’s decision and draw all
reasonable inferences in favor of that decision.”
Adefemi v.
Ashcroft, 386 F.3d 1022, 1026–27 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc).
III.
Singh’s appeal turns on the Board’s factual finding that he
failed to show materially changed circumstances in India since
August 2019—the time of his last hearing.
See 8 U.S.C.
§ 1229a(c)(7)(C)(ii); 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(3)(ii). If that finding stands,
then his motion to reopen was untimely.
See 8 U.S.C.
§ 1229a(c)(7)(C)(i); 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(2).
Singh points to two broad categories of evidence in his
motion that he claims showed a material change in circumstances
in India: the articles that he claims shows increased political
persecution of Sikh activists, and the evidence about the attack on
his wife. After review of the record, we are unpersuaded on both
counts, and we conclude that the Board’s finding that Singh failed
to show materially changed conditions in India was supported by
substantial evidence.
As for the increased political persecution, Singh asks us to
conclude that he now faces a substantially greater risk of being
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22-11620 Opinion of the Court 5
charged with sedition upon return to India. But the articles that he
included with his motion simply do not say that there has been a
rise of political prosecutions of members of Singh’s political
organization since August 2019; instead, they provide high-level
discussion of sedition prosecutions, corruption, police brutality,
and political conflict around Sikh activism without meaningfully
connecting these phenomena to each other or to any material
change since August 2019. Even if someone trying to argue in
Singh’s favor could use some of the evidence he provided as
support, we “draw all reasonable inferences” in favor of the Board’s
decision.
See Adefemi, 386 F.3d at 1027. Applying that standard,
the Board’s discounting of the articles was supported by substantial
evidence.
Likewise, the Board’s finding that the alleged rape of Singh’s
wife did not show a change in national circumstances was also
supported by substantial evidence. As horrible as these allegations
are, Singh did not provide evidence linking the allegations to a
material change since August 2019 in how other Sikhs or members
of Singh’s political organization were treated throughout India.
Without this link, the Board’s treatment of these allegations as
being about a change in
personal circumstances rather than a
change in
national circumstances was supported by substantial
evidence.
This resolves Singh’s appeal. Because the Board’s finding
that there had been no material change in circumstances in India
was supported by substantial evidence, the ordinary 90-day time
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6 Opinion of the Court 22-11620
limit applied to Singh’s motion. So the Board did not abuse its
discretion by denying Singh’s motion to reopen as untimely.
We DENY Singh’s petition.
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