Surinder Pal v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
SURINDER PAL,
Petitioner,
v.
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,
Respondent.
No. 21-70775
Agency No. A205-907-699
MEMORANDUM*
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Submitted March 8, 2022**
San Francisco, California
Before: WALLACE, S.R. THOMAS, and McKEOWN, Circuit Judges.
Surinder Pal, a native and citizen of India, petitions for review of the Board
of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) dismissal of his appeal from an Immigration
Judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his applications for withholding of removal and relief
FILED
MAR 10 2022
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

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under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction pursuant to
8 U.S.C. § 1252. Our review is “limited to the BIA’s decision, except to the extent
that the IJ’s opinion is expressly adopted.” Khudaverdyan v. Holder, 778 F.3d
1101, 1105 (9th Cir. 2015) (citation omitted). In reviewing the BIA’s decision, we
consider only the grounds on which the agency relied. Garcia v. Wilkinson, 988
F.3d 1136, 1142 (9th Cir. 2021). We review questions of law de novo and factual
determinations for substantial evidence. Amaya v. Garland, 15 F.4th 976, 986 (9th
Cir. 2021).
1. The BIA properly concluded that Pal was not entitled to withholding of
removal. The BIA’s conclusion that Pal failed to demonstrate that the government
was unable or unwilling to control his persecutors is supported by substantial
evidence. Velasquez-Gaspar v. Barr, 976 F.3d 1062, 1064 (9th Cir. 2020)
(holding that, to be eligible for withholding of removal, the persecution at issue
“must have been committed by the government” or “by forces that the government
was unable or unwilling to control”) (citation and quotation marks omitted).
Pal claims that the police are looking for him and are bribed by his
persecutors. However, he does not have firsthand knowledge of this and provides
no evidence to support his theory. See Movsisian v. Ashcroft, 395 F.3d 1095, 1097
(9th Cir. 2005) (asylum and withholding properly denied when BIA permissibly
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concluded that fear of future persecution was speculative). Although country
conditions evidence indicates that caste-based violence continues to persist in
India, it also reveals that India has governmental programs in place to protect
lower-caste individuals from mistreatment and discrimination. Hussain v. Rosen,
985 F.3d 634, 648 (9th Cir. 2021) (“[A] country’s government is not ‘unable or
unwilling’ to control violent nonstate actors when it demonstrates efforts to subdue
said groups.”).
In light of our conclusion that Pal has not established governmental inability
or unwillingness to control his persecutors, we need not reach the nexus issue. To
the extent Pal argues that the agency erred in failing to address the threat to Pal
from sources other than his ex-brother-in-law, we lack jurisdiction to consider this
issue because Pal did not raise it before the IJ or the BIA and therefore failed to
exhaust his administrative remedies. See Zara v. Ashcroft, 383 F.3d 927, 931 (9th
Cir. 2004).
2. The BIA also properly concluded that Pal is also not entitled to CAT
relief because he did not demonstrate that it is more likely than not that he would
be tortured if returned to India. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c)(2); Blandino-Medina v.
Holder, 712 F.3d 1338, 1348 (9th Cir. 2013).
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3. The agency was not required to independently take administrative notice
of country-conditions evidence that the parties did not include in the administrative
record. See Liu v. Waters, 55 F.3d 421, 427 (9th Cir. 1995). To the extent that Pal
asks our court to consider such evidence, we are barred from “taking judicial notice
of a report that is not a part of the record.” Fisher v. INS, 79 F.3d 955, 963 (9th
Cir. 1996).
PETITION FOR REVIEW DENIED.
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