The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reversed rulings by immigration courts against Rajeshwar Singh of Seaside, his wife, Mohini Lata Singh, and their two children.
The Singhs are of Indian descent and said they had suffered violence at the hands of Fiji’s native majority, who control the government. Rajeshwar Singh’s father was killed by Fijians in 1987, and the Singhs were under pressure to vacate their leased land, said family’s lawyer, Ashwani Bakhri.
The court said Singh, a cabdriver, was locked in the trunk of his taxi in 1996 by passengers who then rolled the vehicle into a ditch, seriously injuring him. Singh’s wife and one of his young sons were also attacked, the court said.
A federal immigration board ruled that the Singhs had not been persecuted and therefore were ineligible for asylum, because they failed to show that the police were unable or unwilling to protect them. But the court, in a 3-0 ruling last week, said Singh had complained to police about the violence and had gotten no response.
“We have previously recognized the indifference of authorities to violence against Indo-Fijians during the period at issue in this case,” the judges said. They said the Singhs had been persecuted because of their ethnicity, and probably would be persecuted again if they were deported.
