Sanaullah Khan Mohammed, an Indian Muslim man who entered the US on a tourist visa in 2016 and then overstayed and then sought asylum, citing persecution in India, was rejected by the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit after the judges found no merit in his application. He also ruled that Mohammed could not be protected from deportation, as India is a large country and he could be sent back to some other location in India.
Who is Sanaullah Khan Mohammad??
According to court documents, Mohammed said his family ran a slaughterhouse business and that created tension. Around May 2016, he claimed that a group “confronted him and his mother, threw stones at them, and then beat them, all the while warning them to close the slaughterhouse”. Mohammed said local police intervened and dispersed the group. Mohammad suffered minor injuries in the attack.About a month later, Mohammed entered the US on a visitor visa, remained there beyond the December 25, 2016 expiration date, and did not apply for asylum until January 28, 2019.USCIS rejected the asylum application because it did not arrive by the deadline. The case went to an immigration judge, who also dismissed the case and said Mohammed demonstrated “neither past persecution nor any meaningful risk of future persecution”. Mohammed appealed for review.The court said it did not have jurisdiction to review the immigration judge’s order that the asylum application was untimely, but on the issue of ‘withholding of removal’ – that he should not be deported to India, the court said it found no reason not to send Mohammed to India.
Court told that local police stopped the attack
Based on Mohammed’s account, the court said that local police had indeed prevented the 2016 attack. And Mohammed could not demonstrate that “the Government of India had authorized the violence”. The bumps, bruises and injuries Mohammed received in the incident do not lead to the conclusion that he faced persecution in India.The court said, “Mohammed’s challenges are even weaker because his family’s local slaughterhouse business that fueled the previous violence is no longer in operation. What’s more, Mohammed may live elsewhere in the much larger country of India.”