- The Seventh Circuit upheld the deportation order for an Indian national who overstayed his visitor visa.
- The court ruled that a 2016 assault did not constitute persecution under current legal standards.
- Judges dismissed the asylum claim because it was filed after the one-year deadline without jurisdictional relief.
(UNITED STATES) — The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled on May 5, 2026 that Sanaullah Khan Mohammed, an Indian Muslim man who overstayed a visitor visa, could not stop his deportation, dismissing part of his petition and denying the rest in Sanaullah Mohammed v. Todd W. Blanche, No. 25-1901.
Judge Michael Y. Scudder, writing for the court, upheld earlier decisions by an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals. The panel rejected Mohammed’s argument that he qualified for protection after a 2016 attack tied to his family’s cow slaughterhouse business in India.
The court also threw out the asylum portion of the case on jurisdictional grounds, leaving in place the immigration judge’s finding that Mohammed filed too late. He entered the United States on June 26, 2016 and filed for asylum in January 2019, more than one year after arrival.
Scudder’s opinion drew a firm line around the legal standard for persecution. Quoting the court’s account of the 2016 assault, the opinion said: “The bumps, scrapes, and bruises Mohammed received in the May 2016 incident do not compel the conclusion that he suffered persecution. Nor has Mohammed demonstrated that the Indian government allowed the violence. Indeed, local police stopped the attack.”
That finding cut through the center of Mohammed’s case. He had argued that religious and political tensions linked to the family’s beef-packing business put him at risk as a Muslim in India, but the court concluded the attack, standing alone, did not compel a finding of persecution and did not show government complicity.
The panel reached the same conclusion on future risk. It said Mohammed had not shown a likelihood of future persecution, noting that the slaughterhouse business was no longer operating and that he could “live somewhere else within the very large country of India.”
Mohammed, identified in the case as an Indian national and Muslim, entered on a visitor visa and remained after that visa expired. His petition named Acting Attorney General Todd W. Blanche, reflecting the Justice Department’s role in defending the removal order in federal court.
The Seventh Circuit’s handling of the asylum claim rested on timing as much as substance. The court said it lacked jurisdiction to review the immigration judge’s untimeliness finding, which meant Mohammed could not reopen that part of the case in the petition before the appeals court.
That approach fits a harder line in immigration enforcement this year. Since January 1, 2026, the administration has expanded travel and immigration restrictions to 39 countries, while the Department of Homeland Security has intensified interior enforcement through Operation Midway Blitz and quadrupled interior detention capacity, according to Homeland Security Press Releases 2026.
Federal agencies have also moved toward stricter treatment of late-filed asylum applications. USCIS and the Justice Department have been pretermitting, or denying without a full hearing, asylum claims that miss the one-year deadline or do not show extraordinary circumstances for the delay.
The ruling leaves Mohammed with no remaining court victory in this case and exposes him to removal to India. In practical terms, the petition’s failure means the order of deportation stands after the appellate court affirmed the immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals on the withholding and protection issues it could review.
Advocates have argued in similar cases that courts and agencies set too high a bar when they treat localized attacks as isolated episodes and internal relocation as a workable answer for religious minorities. Mohammed’s case now sits as a published example of the opposite view, with the court treating police intervention during the 2016 incident and the size of India as central facts.
The opinion also reflects a narrow reading of what counts as state failure. Scudder wrote that Mohammed had not shown that Indian authorities permitted the violence or proved unable to stop it, and the court pointed to the local police response as evidence against that claim.
That legal reasoning matters well beyond one record. Applicants who enter lawfully, remain after their visas expire, and file asylum claims after the statutory deadline face two distinct hurdles: jurisdictional limits that can shut the courthouse door on timeliness disputes, and a demanding merits test that requires more than evidence of harassment or a single attack.
Within the Seventh Circuit, the decision signals that proof of harm alone will not carry a withholding claim without stronger evidence linking the threat to government action, government acquiescence, or a failure of protection. Mohammed’s evidence, the panel held, did not meet that threshold.
The case record available through GovInfo case details identifies the matter as No. 25-1901. The opinion itself appears in Sanaullah Mohammed v. Todd W. Blanche, issued on May 5, 2026, with Scudder concluding that Mohammed had not established persecution, had not shown a likelihood of future persecution, and had filed asylum too late to keep that claim alive.
