Gafoor v. INS

Abdul Gafoor was born in Fiji, but his parents were of Indian descent. Gafoor became a police officer, and one day he arrested a man whom he caught in the act of raping a 13-year-old girl. When Gafoor took the man, who was wearing civilian clothing, to the police station, he learned from his supervisor, an ethnic Fijian, that the man was an army officer of high rank and that Gafoor’s life was now in jeopardy. The army officer was released with no charges. The next night, the army officer brought uniformed soldiers to Gafoor’s home, and they beat him in the presence of his wife and children. The soldiers imprisoned Gafoor for a week, during which time Gafoor continued to be assaulted, and the soldiers inquired as to why Gafoor had arrested the army officer. The soldiers instructed Gafoor not to disclose the rape or their assault on him and accused Gafoor of being in opposition to the army. At that time, ethnic Fijian soldiers were staging a military coup to oust the elected Indo-Fijian government. After Gafoor’s release, he was back walking the streets on patrol one night when a vehicle pulled up. The army officer he had arrested and several soldiers got out of the vehicle and beat Gafoor with their rifles. The soldiers threatened to kill Gafoor and told him that he should return to India. The soldiers left Gafoor in a ditch, unconscious. Gafoor was hospitalized for nine days. Gafoor and his family later fled to Canada and then to the United States, where after almost two years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) (defendant) initiated deportation proceedings. Gafoor sought asylum and withholding of deportation, but an immigration judge ruled that Gafoor’s persecution was not on account of a protected ground under the Immigration and Nationality Act but only as retribution for arresting the high-ranking army officer. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed, and Garfoor petitioned for review.