Date: Oct 22, 2026

Continuing Harm from Past Abuse Does Not Replace CAT’s Requirement of Likely Future Torture

Case: Mohammad Qaiymah v. Todd Blanche
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Decided: October 19, 2026
Disposition: Petition for review denied by a unanimous, published opinion.

1. Introduction

This decision distinguishes the enduring consequences of past abuse from the legal requirements for protection against removal. Mohammad Fawwaz Qaiymah, a Jordanian citizen, sought asylum, humanitarian asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), principally because of sexual assaults he suffered in Jordan. The immigration authorities credited his account of those assaults but concluded that he had not established the additional elements necessary for relief.

Writing for a unanimous panel, Judge Rushing upheld that determination. For asylum and withholding of removal, the central issue was whether the abuse was connected to Qaiymah’s proposed particular social group of “imputed homosexuals.” For CAT protection, the question was whether he had shown that torture was more likely than not upon return.

The opinion’s most distinctive holding is that continuing harm from past sexual abuse does not, without a sufficient likelihood of future torture, establish CAT eligibility. The court also clarified that a perpetrator’s exploitation of homophobic stigma does not necessarily compel a finding that the perpetrator targeted the victim because of an imputed sexual orientation.

2. Background and Procedural History

Qaiymah lawfully entered the United States in 2014 as the unmarried child of a United States citizen. Following a 2019 conviction for obtaining money by false pretenses through a fraudulent credit-card scheme, the Department of Homeland Security established his removability for a crime involving moral turpitude.

In seeking protection from removal, Qaiymah described repeated sexual assaults by Abdul, a wealthier man approximately ten years older who worked for the Jordanian government. According to Qaiymah, Abdul initially raped him when he was fifteen or sixteen, recorded the assault, and used the recording to blackmail him into silence during approximately six years of further abuse. Qaiymah attributed his vulnerability to poverty, an abusive household, isolation, and low self-esteem.

In 2011, a second man, Anas, joined Abdul in an assault at knifepoint. Qaiymah escaped and reported both men, although he told authorities that they had attempted rape rather than completed it. Both were arrested. Anas was convicted of indecent assault and sentenced to hard labor; Qaiymah testified that Abdul was never formally charged.

Qaiymah remained in Jordan until 2014 and subsequently returned three times, for approximately one month on each occasion. During the last visit, Abdul twice appeared at his college and attempted to persuade him to enter a car. Qaiymah refused and was not physically harmed.

The immigration judge (IJ) found the sexual-assault evidence credible but denied relief. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed. Two other matters were outside the contested issues on judicial review: Qaiymah did not challenge the rejection of his separate proposed social group of sexual-assault victims who participated in criminal proceedings, or adverse findings concerning his asserted fear of his father.

The government sought a remand for further agency consideration without conceding error. Qaiymah opposed that request. The Fourth Circuit declined to remand, concluding that the agency had already considered the relevant claims, and ultimately denied the petition on the merits.

3. Summary of the Opinion

No compelled protected-ground nexus: Substantial evidence supported the finding that Abdul targeted Qaiymah because of his vulnerability, rather than because Abdul perceived him as homosexual.
Future persecution remained speculative: The evidence did not compel a finding that others would learn of the assaults, impute homosexuality to Qaiymah, and persecute him on that basis.
No sufficient probability of future torture: The agency reasonably considered the absence of further assaults after 2011, Qaiymah’s continued residence and subsequent visits to Jordan, and his unharmed encounters with Abdul.
No need to decide a non-dispositive acquiescence issue: Because Qaiymah failed to establish likely future torture, the agency did not need to decide whether Jordanian officials would acquiesce. His country-conditions evidence had been offered only on that latter issue.
Past abuse alone does not establish CAT eligibility: Unlike humanitarian asylum, CAT protection contains no exception allowing relief solely because past mistreatment was exceptionally severe.

4. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited and Their Influence

The court principally applied established immigration-review doctrines rather than replacing them. The cited authorities supplied the standards for judicial review, protected-ground causation, and the distinction between humanitarian asylum and CAT protection.

Scope and Standards of Judicial Review

Arita-Deras v. Wilkinson, 990 F.3d 350 (4th Cir. 2021). This decision determines which agency reasoning the court reviews. When the Board adopts an IJ’s decision and adds its own explanation, the court examines both, but considers the IJ’s reasoning only insofar as the Board adopted or incorporated it. That rule defined the reviewable administrative decision here.
Flores-Turcios v. Blanche, 182 F.4th 332 (4th Cir. 2026). The court cited this authority for treating nexus and likelihood-of-torture determinations as factual findings subject to deferential review. This classification was important because Qaiymah’s principal disagreements concerned the agency’s interpretation of the evidence.
Nasrallah v. Barr, 140 S. Ct. 1683 (2020). This Supreme Court authority characterizes substantial-evidence review as “highly deferential.” Its influence is evident throughout the opinion: the appellate court asked whether the agency’s conclusions were permissible, not whether it would independently have drawn the same inferences.
Nolasco v. Garland, 7 F.4th 180 (4th Cir. 2021). This case supplied several governing principles: review of the whole administrative record for sufficient evidentiary support, de novo review of legal conclusions, the applicant’s burden under CAT, and the prohibition against appellate reweighing of evidence. It therefore connected the review framework to the court’s rejection of Qaiymah’s CAT challenges.
Biestek v. Berryhill, 139 S. Ct. 1148 (2019). Quoted through Nolasco v. Garland, this case supplied the general formulation of substantial evidence as sufficient evidence supporting an agency’s factual determinations. Its role was methodological rather than immigration-specific.
Tang v. Lynch, 840 F.3d 176 (4th Cir. 2016), and Mulyani v. Holder, 771 F.3d 190 (4th Cir. 2014). These decisions establish that a record capable of supporting two outcomes does not justify reversal. The applicant’s position must be compelled, not merely supported. This principle defeated Qaiymah’s argument that the recording and blackmail necessarily demonstrated a changed, protected-ground motive.
Ponce-Flores v. Garland, 80 F.4th 480 (4th Cir. 2023), and Tassi v. Holder, 660 F.3d 710 (4th Cir. 2011). These authorities govern claims that the agency failed to explain its decision or disregarded important evidence. Such claims receive abuse-of-discretion review. Ponce-Flores v. Garland also supplied the two essential CAT requirements: likely torture and the necessary governmental involvement or acquiescence.

Protected-Ground Nexus and Mixed Motives

Lopez-Benitez v. Garland, 91 F.4th 763 (4th Cir. 2024). This decision explains that withholding of removal requires a higher probability of persecution than asylum. In this case, the shared failure to establish protected-ground nexus defeated both claims; the court did not need separately to resolve the higher probability requirement.
Diaz-Hernandez v. Garland, 104 F.4th 465 (4th Cir. 2024). The court relied on this case for the rule that asylum and withholding claims have equally demanding nexus standards in the Fourth Circuit. For each, the protected characteristic must be “at least one central reason” for persecution.
Madrid-Montoya v. Garland, 52 F.4th 175 (4th Cir. 2022). This authority recognizes that persecution may have more than one central cause. The panel accepted Qaiymah’s mixed-motive premise but concluded that the agency had not treated vulnerability and perceived homosexuality as mutually exclusive explanations.
Cordova v. Holder, 759 F.3d 332 (4th Cir. 2014). This case recognizes that persecutory motives may change over time or differ between incidents. It supported the legal possibility of Qaiymah’s changed-motive theory, without requiring acceptance of that theory on this record.
Crespin-Valladares v. Holder, 632 F.3d 117 (4th Cir. 2011). The opinion drew two rules from this decision. First, a protected ground need not be the dominant motive, but must be more than incidental, tangential, superficial, or subordinate. Second, a well-founded fear requires a reasonable possibility of persecution. Those rules framed both the past-persecution nexus analysis and the rejection of speculative future harm.
Perez Vasquez v. Garland, 4 F.4th 213 (4th Cir. 2021). This precedent requires attention to intertwined reasons for persecution. The panel distinguished a failure to consider overlapping motives from a supported finding that the alleged protected motive was not established. It concluded that the agency had considered, rather than overlooked, Qaiymah’s theory.
Alvarez Lagos v. Barr, 927 F.3d 236 (4th Cir. 2019). This was central to the imputed-characteristic analysis: the relevant inquiry is the persecutor’s subjective perception of the victim. A threat exploiting what others might believe did not compel a finding that Abdul himself perceived Qaiymah as homosexual and targeted him for that reason.

CAT Evidence, Unnecessary Findings, and Humanitarian Asylum

Rodriguez-Arias v. Whitaker, 915 F.3d 968 (4th Cir. 2019). This decision requires meaningful engagement with relevant evidence. Applying it, the court found that the agency had addressed Qaiymah’s relocation argument, including Abdul’s asserted government connections, and explained why his actual encounters and return visits nevertheless supported denial.
INS v. Bagamasbad, 429 U.S. 24 (1976). This Supreme Court decision establishes that adjudicators generally need not decide issues unnecessary to their result. Because the agency found no sufficient probability of torture, it did not need to determine governmental acquiescence or discuss evidence presented solely to establish that element.
Gonahasa v. INS, 181 F.3d 538 (4th Cir. 1999). This case describes humanitarian asylum based on exceptionally severe past persecution, even without a well-founded fear of future persecution. Rather than supporting Qaiymah’s CAT theory, it demonstrated that his argument invoked a distinct form of relief. CAT’s regulations contain no comparable exception to their future-torture requirement.

B. Legal Reasoning

1. Credible Abuse Does Not Automatically Establish Statutory Eligibility

The court did not dispute the seriousness of Qaiymah’s experiences. Nor did it endorse a finding that the assaults never occurred. The distinction was between proving the underlying events and proving every element of a protection claim.

Asylum requires persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution “on account of” a protected ground under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). Under § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i), that ground must be at least one central reason for the persecution. The Fourth Circuit applies the same nexus requirement to withholding of removal. Humanitarian asylum likewise did not eliminate the need to connect qualifying past persecution to a protected ground.

2. Exploiting Stigma Is Not Necessarily the Same as Acting on an Imputed Identity

Qaiymah’s strongest nexus argument concerned Abdul’s recording and threats. He maintained that fear of being perceived as homosexual sustained the coercion, including after he reached adulthood.

The court accepted that this was a possible interpretation. But it distinguished the mechanism of coercion from the persecutor’s attributed motive. Abdul could exploit the prospect that others might impute homosexuality to Qaiymah without himself holding that belief or selecting Qaiymah because of it.

The record also supported a different explanation: Abdul preyed on young men from poor families who lacked protection. Qaiymah’s own evidence emphasized his isolation, poverty, abusive background, and low self-esteem. Given that evidence, the agency’s inference was not one that every reasonable adjudicator had to reject.

Importantly, the court did not hold that blackmail involving sexual stigma can never establish nexus. Its holding concerned what this record compelled under deferential review. Nor did it decide whether “imputed homosexuals” constituted a legally cognizable particular social group.

3. Future Persecution Required More Than a Hypothetical Sequence

Qaiymah also feared that unidentified people might learn about the assaults or criminal proceedings, perceive him as homosexual, and persecute him. The Board expressly considered this argument and found it speculative.

The court upheld that assessment because the evidence did not compel the necessary chain of inferences: disclosure, attribution of sexual orientation, and persecution because of that attribution. The court thus rejected both the evidentiary argument and the contention that the agency had failed to address it.

4. CAT Protection Depends on a Forward-Looking Probability Assessment

CAT does not require a protected-ground nexus. It does, however, require proof that torture is more likely than not if the applicant is removed, together with the necessary governmental involvement, consent, or acquiescence. Under 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c)(3), relevant evidence includes past torture, relocation possibilities, human-rights violations, and country conditions.

The agency considered Qaiymah’s past abuse but also examined what happened afterward. The last assault occurred in 2011; he remained in Jordan until 2014; he returned three times; and Abdul did not physically harm him during their two later encounters. These circumstances supported the finding that future torture had not been shown to be more likely than not.

The return visits were evidentiary considerations, not an automatic legal bar. Likewise, the court did not require Qaiymah to prove that he could successfully relocate. Rather, it upheld the agency’s reasoning that the claimed ability to locate him did not establish a sufficient probability of torture, particularly given his experiences without relocation.

5. The Duty to Address Evidence Depends on Its Relevance to the Dispositive Issue

The country-conditions ruling is narrow. Before the agency, Qaiymah presented that evidence only to show that officials would acquiesce in torture by his father or Abdul. Because the agency found insufficient likelihood of torture, individually or in the aggregate, acquiescence could not change the outcome.

The court therefore permitted the agency to leave acquiescence unresolved. It did not authorize immigration adjudicators generally to disregard country conditions. Evidence bearing directly on the likelihood of torture would present a different relevance question.

6. Continuing Trauma Does Not Substitute for Likely Future Torture

Qaiymah’s alternative argument was that childhood sexual abuse created permanent, continuing harm entitling him to CAT protection even without probable future torture. The court rejected that proposed rule.

The regulations require a showing that the applicant “would be tortured” if removed and direct attention to “future torture.” Their definition of torture concerns intentionally inflicted severe physical or mental suffering, with additional requirements concerning official involvement and the offender’s custody or physical control.

The court contrasted those requirements with humanitarian asylum, which can accommodate exceptionally severe past persecution without a continuing risk of persecution. No analogous exception appears in the CAT regulations.

This reasoning does not exclude mental torture or render lasting psychological injury irrelevant. The agency recognized that torture may be mental. The decisive distinction is between continuing consequences of completed abuse and proof of likely future conduct satisfying CAT’s definition of torture.

C. Potential Impact and Limits

Clearer separation of remedies: Applicants cannot import humanitarian asylum’s exceptional treatment of severe past persecution into CAT protection. Each remedy retains its own elements.
More focused evidence in imputed-identity claims: Evidence should address what the persecutor believed and why that belief mattered, rather than relying solely on generalized stigma or the possibility of public misperception.
Continued protection for mixed-motive theories: The opinion preserves the principles that motives can overlap and change. It does not require a protected ground to be the sole or dominant reason for abuse.
Importance of post-abuse history: Later residence, travel, encounters, threats, and periods without harm may substantially affect a CAT risk assessment. Their significance remains contextual.
Efficient but reasoned agency adjudication: The agency may stop after a dispositive failure of proof, but it must meaningfully address evidence relevant to that failure.
A record-specific precedent: As a published Fourth Circuit decision, the opinion supplies binding circuit guidance. Its application does not establish that sexual-assault survivors, people perceived as homosexual, or victims of blackmail are categorically ineligible for protection.

5. Complex Concepts Simplified

Nexus: The required connection between persecution and a legally protected characteristic. Serious harm alone does not establish that connection.
Imputed homosexuality: A sexual orientation attributed to a person, whether or not the attribution is accurate. In this case, the alleged persecutor’s perception was central.
“One central reason”: A protected characteristic must meaningfully motivate the persecution. It need not be the only or strongest motive, but cannot be merely incidental.
Substantial-evidence review: The appellate court does not choose its preferred factual account. It upholds the agency unless the evidence compels a contrary conclusion.
Well-founded fear: For asylum, a reasonable possibility of protected-ground persecution—not a requirement that persecution be more likely than not.
Humanitarian asylum: A form of asylum that may be available for exceptionally severe qualifying past persecution despite the absence of a well-founded fear of future persecution.
CAT protection: Protection requiring likely future torture with the necessary official involvement or acquiescence. Unlike asylum, it does not require a protected-ground motive.
Government acquiescence: Official awareness before torture occurs, followed by a breach of the official’s legal responsibility to intervene. The court did not decide whether this requirement was met here.

6. Conclusion

The Fourth Circuit upheld the denial of relief without discounting the gravity or credibility of Qaiymah’s abuse. The missing elements were a demonstrated protected-ground nexus for asylum-related relief and a sufficient likelihood of future torture for CAT protection.

The decision’s central contribution is to distinguish enduring injury from prospective eligibility: severe past abuse remains important evidence, but its continuing effects do not independently replace CAT’s requirement of likely future torture. The opinion also reinforces that appellate review tests the legal and evidentiary adequacy of the agency’s decision rather than redeciding the facts.