Asylum Denied Where Political-Party Attack Is Treated as Private-Actor Harm and the Record Does Not Compel “Unable or Unwilling to Protect”

Precedents Cited

Laguna Rivera v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 130 F.4th 915 (11th Cir. 2025)

Cited for the exhaustion requirement under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1). The opinion notes Uddin did not appeal the IJ’s denial of Convention Against Torture (CAT) relief to the BIA, so the Eleventh Circuit would not consider CAT. This framing underscores a recurring appellate constraint in immigration cases: issues not presented to the BIA are jurisdictionally (or statutorily) barred from review.

Sepulveda v. United States Att'y Gen., 401 F.3d 1226 (11th Cir. 2005)

Used to distinguish generalized country violence from individualized risk. The IJ relied on documentary evidence of political lawlessness and civil strife, but Sepulveda is invoked to emphasize that generalized reports of violence, without more, do not show a petitioner will be “singled out for persecution.” The citation reinforces the court’s insistence on individualized proof, not merely a turbulent backdrop.

Reyes-Sanchez v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 369 F.3d 1239 (11th Cir. 2004)

The opinion cites Reyes-Sanchez for the proposition that the BIA may “rely heavily” on State Department country reports. Here, those reports (including a 2015 report) supplied evidence that Bangladesh had taken steps against police corruption and did not prosecute individuals solely for political reasons—supporting the agency’s conclusion that protection might be available.

Kazemzadeh v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 577 F.3d 1341 (11th Cir. 2009)

Kazemzadeh supplies two key review principles:

• The court reviews the BIA’s decision, and the IJ’s decision only to the extent the BIA expressly adopted it.
• Under substantial evidence review, the court may not “re-weigh the evidence from scratch.”

This precedent is crucial to the outcome: even if Uddin could point to evidence suggesting governmental complicity, the existence of countervailing evidence meant the record did not compel reversal.

Lopez v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 504 F.3d 1341 (11th Cir. 2007)

The opinion draws from Lopez two related rules:

• An asylum applicant must show he is “unable to avail [him]self of the protection of [his] home country.”
• Failure to report persecution to local authorities is “generally” fatal—unless the applicant “convincingly demonstrates” reporting would be futile because authorities would be unable or unwilling to protect.

This is the doctrinal hinge in Uddin’s case. He did not report the attack; he relied on advice from BNP leaders that police would not help and might kill him. The agency concluded that the record did not “convincingly” show reporting would have been useless.

Adefemi v. Ashcroft, 386 F.3d 1022 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc)

Cited to articulate the highly deferential nature of substantial evidence review: the court views evidence in the light most favorable to the BIA’s decision and draws reasonable inferences in its favor. This standard makes reversal difficult unless the record forces the opposite conclusion.

Mazariegos v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 241 F.3d 1320 (11th Cir. 2001)

Mazariegos appears repeatedly to reinforce the “compel reversal” threshold. The court quotes the principle that denial of asylum may be reversed only if the evidence is “so powerful that a reasonable factfinder would have to conclude” the requisite fear exists. The opinion also adopts Mazariegos’s formulation that the question is whether there is substantial evidence for the findings actually made—not whether another finding could have been made.

Ayala v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 605 F.3d 941 (11th Cir. 2010)

Used for the substantive requirement that, to excuse non-reporting (and to establish eligibility where persecutors are non-state actors), the applicant must show persecution by the government or by private actors the government is unwilling or unable to control. The Eleventh Circuit relied on Ayala to explain why proving “Awami League affiliation” alone was insufficient; Uddin needed evidence of state action or state inability/unwillingness.

Forgue v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 401 F.3d 1282 (11th Cir. 2005)

Cited for the familiar asylum/withholding relationship: failure to establish asylum eligibility on the merits generally defeats withholding of removal as well, because withholding has a higher burden. The court applied this principle directly once it concluded Uddin had not established asylum eligibility.

Sama v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 887 F.3d 1225 (11th Cir. 2018)

The opinion uses Sama to temper inferences drawn from imperfect law enforcement: “the failure to make an arrest does not prove that the police did not investigate,” and an IJ may rely on country reports showing increasing responsiveness. This supported the agency’s view that even if protection is imperfect, the record did not compel the conclusion that Bangladesh is categorically unable or unwilling to control political violence.

Johnson v. City of Fort Lauderdale, 126 F.3d 1372 (11th Cir. 1997) and Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A)

The court invoked appellate briefing rules to reject an unsupported assertion that attackers acted at government direction: appellants must cite the record; it is not the court’s job to “cull the record.” This procedural point mattered substantively—because the “government actor” theory lacked evidentiary support, the case remained in the “private actor + inability/unwillingness” framework.

Legal Reasoning

1. Framework: asylum requires inability to obtain home-country protection. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(A)-(B) and Eleventh Circuit precedent, an applicant must show not only harm tied to a protected ground, but also that he cannot avail himself of state protection.
2. Non-reporting is presumptively fatal, absent convincing proof of futility. Because Uddin did not report his attack, he needed to “convincingly demonstrate” reporting would have been useless or dangerous due to official inability/unwillingness to protect (as framed by Lopez and Ayala).
3. The agency treated the attack as private-actor harm. Even if attackers were Awami League members, the record did not show they were government employees or acting with government authorization. The court emphasized the absence of record support for the claim of state direction (including the petitioner’s failure to provide record citations).
4. The country-conditions evidence cut both ways. The IJ acknowledged evidence suggesting BNP members might have difficulty relying on a League-led government. But the IJ also relied on evidence that League members and corrupt police officers were arrested, that anti-corruption steps existed, and that political prosecutions were not categorical. Under Reyes-Sanchez, the agency could give significant weight to State Department reports.
5. Appellate posture: substantial evidence + “compels reversal” rule. The Eleventh Circuit did not decide whether it would have reached a different conclusion de novo. Instead, applying Adefemi, Kazemzadeh, and Mazariegos, it asked only whether the record compelled the opposite conclusion. Because the evidence was “mixed,” it did not.
6. Withholding necessarily fails. Under Forgue, once asylum failed on the merits, withholding also failed.

Notably, the BIA affirmed on an “alternative merits analysis” that assumed credibility, so the Eleventh Circuit did not address adverse credibility findings that were not adopted as a basis of decision—consistent with the review-limiting approach described via Kazemzadeh and Lopez.

Impact

Although unpublished and labeled “NOT FOR PUBLICATION,” the decision is instructive in several practical and doctrinal respects within the Eleventh Circuit:

• Political-party violence does not equal state persecution. Membership in the ruling party (here, the Awami League) does not automatically transform attackers into state actors; applicants must build an evidentiary bridge to show official capacity, direction, or acquiescence, or else prove governmental inability/unwillingness to control them.
• Country-conditions evidence must be tied to the applicant’s burden. Even robust evidence of unrest may be treated as “generalized violence” unless connected to a specific inability/unwillingness to protect the applicant (and to why reporting would be futile).
• State Department reports remain highly influential. The agency’s reliance on governmental reform efforts and prosecutions, even amid acknowledged corruption and violence, shows the continued centrality of such reports in “unable or unwilling” determinations.
• Substantial evidence review is often dispositive. The decision demonstrates how “mixed record” findings are hard to overturn; petitioners must show the record compels reversal, not merely that another result is plausible.
• Briefing discipline can decide outcomes. The court’s reliance on Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A) and Johnson v. City of Fort Lauderdale highlights that unsupported factual assertions—especially about government direction—may be disregarded, narrowing viable legal theories.