Otgonbayar Lkhagvasuren v. Loretta E. Lynch

Petitioner Otgonbayar Lkhagvasuren petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (Board) decision to deny his applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252 (a)(1). We review the Board’s factual determinations for substantial evidence and deny the petition.

Lkhagvasuren is a native and citizen of Mongolia who entered the United States with a visitor’s visa in 2010 and subsequently applied for asylum. In Mongolia he was employed by an alcoholic-beverage company that he believed was engaged in corrupt activities, was subsequently fired from his job, joined a non-governmental consumer activist group, and later publicly voiced objections to the company’s busi ness practices. Lkhagvasuren asserts that his whistleblowing activities constituted a political opinion for which he was persecuted with either the consent or acquiescence of government actors.

A petitioner seeking asylum must establish that “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion was or will be at least one central reason for” persecution…