Zaza

Dissenting.

I believe that when the Muslim Brotherhood’s threats that Ms. Ruman “should pay a price” and “should be taught a lesson” are understood in the larger context in which they were made, it becomes clear that she — and her three young daughters — face a likelihood of persecution if forced to return to Jordan. These threats come from a group that “teaches” women lessons by throwing acid on them, beating them, and assaulting them with knives for their refusal to wear the hijab or to otherwise conform to the Muslim Brotherhood’s fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. Furthermore, Ms. Ruman was targeted specifically for refusing to wear a garment associated with female modesty. Based on their threats and name-calling, the Muslim Brotherhood views Ms. Ruman’s and other women’s rejection of that garment as sexual misconduct. In a country in which the Country Reports describes violence against women as “common” and cites widespread government inaction toward, if not outright acceptance of, “honor killings” of women deemed to have committed some sexual misconduct, the Muslim’s Brotherhood’s threats against Ms. Ruman for not acting as a “Muslim woman,” take on particular menace.…

MEMORANDUM *

Ruman argues that, though she filed for asylum more than a year after April 1, 1997, she is nonetheless eligible for asylum because of “changed circumstances.” See 8 U.S.C. § 1158 (a)(2)(B), (D); 8 C.F.R. § 208.4 (a)(2)(h). But she did not raise the timeliness issue in her notice of appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), nor did she file a timely brief with the BIA. See A.R. 12, 30. Therefore, she did not “exhaust all administrative remedies available to her as of right,” and so we lack jurisdiction to review the immigration judge’s (IJ) denial of her asylum claim. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252 (d)(1).

To be eligible for withholding of deportation, Ruman must show a “clear probability” of persecution; that is, she must establish that she would more likely than not be persecuted on account of a protected ground if she were to return to Jordan. See INS v. Stevie, 467 U.S. 407 , 429 — 30, 104 S.Ct. 2489 , 81 L.Ed.2d 321 (1984); Hoxha v. Ashcroft, 319 F.3d 1179, *642 1185 (9th Cir.2003). Ruman concedes that the routine harassment and name-calling she experienced in Jordan do not rise to the level of persecution. She contends, though, that the threats by members of the…