Asylum & withholding of removal under the Immigration & Nationality Act (INA); 8 USC §§ 1101(a)(42)(A) & 1158(b)(1)(B)(i); § 1231(b)(3)(A); “Nexus” between risk of persecution & membership in a protected group; A “particular social group”; “Victims of government-sanctioned extortion” & “victims of threats, extortion, & kidnapping by loan sharks”; The Convention Against Torture (CAT); 8 CFR § 1208.16(c)(2); Government “acquiescence”; Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA); Immigration judge (IJ)

The court held that petitioners (the Patels) failed to establish the required nexus between their membership in their claimed particular social groups “and their risk of future persecution.” The court also found “several problems with” their CAT claims. Thus, it denied their petition for review of the BIA’s decision dismissing their appeal from the IJ’s ruling denying them relief from removal. They fled India after being threatened with kidnapping and death by local loan sharks. They entered the U.S. illegally and were scheduled for removal. They then sought asylum and withholding of removal under the INA as well as protection under the CAT. The court first noted that for both asylum and withholding of removal, there must be “a ‘nexus’ between a noncitizen’s risk of persecution in the country of removal and their membership in a protected group, including a ‘particular social group.’” While other circuits treat the nexus requirements for these forms of relief as being identical, the Sixth Circuit considers the “withholding[] nexus requirement to be less stringent than the asylum standard, requiring that the withholding applicant show merely that the protected status is ‘at least one reason’ for the feared prosecution.” But the court noted that this difference “matters little when substantial evidence supports the Board’s finding of ‘no nexus at all between’ the risk of future persecution and a claimant’s membership in a protected class.” The Patels’ claims were all based on the assertion “that they would face future persecution in India because of their membership in two particular social groups: ‘victims of government-sanctioned extortion’ and ‘victims of threats, extortion, and kidnapping by loan sharks.’” The court held that even assuming these were “cognizable particular social groups[,]” it would be difficult to find a connection between the Patels’ membership in them and the threat of future persecution. “Nothing suggests that a reason the loan sharks threatened the Patels was because the family were loan-shark victims. Instead, the record uniformly shows that they did so to get the money they felt [one of the petitioners] owed them.” As for relief under the CAT, “failure to inform authorities of threats by potential torturers typically dooms a CAT claim, as such evidence signals ‘that the government did not turn a willfully blind eye to the applicant.’” Although this “can be overcome with ‘additional evidence’” the court found that “the Patels’ additional evidence falls short many times over.”