BIA Holds That Isolated Police Refusal Does Not Establish Government Unwillingness to Protect

The BIA held that a single attempt to report an incident of harm by private actors to local police, without further harm from the police themselves or evidence of their widespread collusion with the alleged persecutors, does not establish that the government, as a whole, is unable or unwilling to protect a respondent from persecution. On the merits, the BIA found that although the Sikh respondent was twice attacked and threatened in 2018 by Hindu individuals associated with the RSS party in India, the record showed only one unsuccessful effort to report the first attack. The Board determined that this isolated refusal, tied to the influence of his girlfriend’s BJP-member father, did not demonstrate governmental acquiescence or a broader failure of state protection. Accordingly, the BIA dismissed the respondent’s appeal and affirmed the IJ’s denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and Convention Against Torture (CAT) relief. Matter of K-S-H-, 29 I&N Dec. 307 (BIA 2025)