A Muslim man from India seeks asylum in the United States due to persecution. The court says there is no evidence.
An Indian Muslim man, Sanaullah Khan Muhammad, who entered the United States in 2016 on a tourist visa and then overstayed, then sought asylum, citing persecution in India, was denied by the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, as the judges found no basis for his request.
They also ruled that Muhammad could not be protected from deportation, because India is a large country and he could be returned to anywhere else in India.
Who is Sanaullah Khan Muhammad? ?
According to court documents, Muhammad said his family ran a slaughterhouse business, which led to tension. In May 2016, he claimed that a group “confronted him and his mother, threw stones at him, then beat him, all the while advising them to close the slaughterhouse.”
Muhammad said that the local police intervened and dispersed the group. The attack resulted in Muhammad being slightly injured.About a month later, Muhammad entered the United States on a visitor visa, remained there past the expiration date of December 25, 2016, and did not apply for asylum until January 28, 2019.USCIS denied the asylum application because it did not come within the deadline. The case went to an immigration judge, who also dismissed the case and said Muhammad “did not demonstrate any past persecution or a real risk of future persecution.”
Muhammad called for a review of the matter.The court noted that it did not have jurisdiction to review an immigration judge’s ruling that the asylum application was untimely, but on the issue of “withholding of removal” – that is, that he should not be deported to India, the court said it found no reason why Mohammed should not be deported to India.
The court indicated that the local police stopped the attack
Based on Mohamed’s account, the court said that local police had, in fact, stopped the 2016 attack.
Mohammed was unable to prove that “the Indian government permitted the violence.” The bumps, scrapes and bruises that Muhammad sustained in the accident did not force him to conclude that he was suffering persecution in India.“Mohammed’s challenges are weaker because his family’s local slaughterhouse business that sparked violence in the past no longer exists. What’s more, Mohamed can live elsewhere within the very large state of India,” the court said.
