Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-15-02413/USCOURTS-ca7-15-02413-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Loretta E. Lynch
Respondent
Francisco Alberto Romero Arrazabal
Petitioner

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 15-2413

FRANCISCO ALBERTO ROMERO ARRAZABAL,

Petitioner,

v.

LORETTA E. LYNCH, Attorney General of the United States,

Respondent.

____________________

Petition for Review of an Order of the

Board of Immigration Appeals

No. A045-091-341

____________________

SUBMITTED MARCH 10, 2016* — DECIDED MAY 4, 2016

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and POSNER and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Chief Judge. Francisco Alberto Romero Arrazabal, 

a Salvadoran with ties to the Mara Salvatrucha gang, applied 

for withholding of removal and relief under the U.N. Con-

 * After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral 

argument is unnecessary. The appeal is therefore ready for disposition. 

See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). 

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2 No. 15-2413

vention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (the CAT). Arrazabal fears 

that if he is returned to El Salvador, he will be persecuted by 

his gang, a rival gang, or the police. An immigration judge 

found his testimony incredible and denied all relief; the 

Board of Immigration Appeals upheld that decision. 

Arrazabal filed a timely petition for review, which we grant. 

When Arrazabal first entered the United States in 1995 at 

the age of 19, he was given the status of a lawful permanent 

resident alien, based on the fact that his mother and sister 

were naturalized citizens. Within a year, however, he had 

become involved with the Los Angeles chapter of the Mara 

Salvatrucha gang, known as MS-13, which has members in 

both the United States and El Salvador. (It is unclear, though 

immaterial at this point, when Arrazabal initially joined the 

gang: he told an asylum officer that he joined in 1992 while 

still in El Salvador, but he testified before the immigration 

judge that he joined in 1996 after his move to the United 

States.) Arrazabal’s gang association quickly led to run-ins 

with the law. He was convicted and imprisoned for one year 

in California for illegal gun possession, and then he wound 

up back in prison for two years for possessing cocaine, a violation of his probation. While in prison he obtained several 

prominent tattoos identifying him as a member of MS-13.

This criminal activity led in 2001 to the revocation of 

Arrazabal’s status as a lawful permanent resident alien. He 

applied at that time for asylum, but his application was denied and he was removed to El Salvador. About a decade later, Arrazabal attempted to reenter the United States illegally 

near Hidalgo, Texas. He failed: Border Patrol agents caught 

him and charged him with being present in the United States 

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No. 15-2413 3

unlawfully after his removal. See 8 U.S.C. § 1326. He pleaded 

guilty to that offense and received a 27-month sentence. 

While his criminal case was pending, Arrazabal learned 

that the 2001 removal order would be reinstated. See 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1231(a)(5). At this point, he decided to seek asylum. During 

a credible-fear interview, see 8 C.F.R. § 241.8(e), he told an 

officer that he feared he would be killed if he were returned 

to El Salvador. He wanted to quit MS-13, he explained, but 

his identifying tattoos made him a target for fellow MS-13 

members, for rival gangs, and for the Salvadoran police. The 

asylum officer found that Arrazabal had shown a reasonable 

probability that he had been tortured in his home country

during police beatings in 2008 and 2010 for being a suspected MS-13 member, and that these beatings were sufficient to 

create a reasonable possibility that he would be tortured if 

returned there.

Because his 2001 removal order made him ineligible for 

asylum, Arrazabal then applied for withholding of removal 

and CAT protection. At a hearing before an immigration 

judge on his revised application, he testified that after his 

removal from the United States in 2001, he had tried to earn 

an honest living as a bricklayer in El Salvador. He was stymied by his tattoos, which exposed him as an MS-13 member and invited harassment from fellow gang members, who 

wanted him to return to active participation in the gang and 

extorted weekly $10 payments from him. Arrazabal also described frequent harassment at the hands of the Salvadoran 

police. They arrested him 30 times without cause, and twice 

beat him with batons during interrogations. To corroborate 

these assertions, Arrazabal submitted a number of exhibits, 

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vador and letters from relatives (his mother, mother-in-law, 

sister, and uncle) expressing concern that he would be murdered by MS-13 if he were sent back.

The immigration judge denied Arrazabal’s application, 

largely on grounds of lack of credibility. In particular, the 

judge did not believe that Arrazabal had refrained entirely 

from criminal activity while he was active in MS-13, that he 

had been framed by U.S. police officers on two separate occasions, that U.S. public defenders had represented him inadequately, that the immigration judge who ordered him 

removed was racist, that he suffered abuse by Salvadoran 

police, or that he had received death threats from his fellow 

gang members.

Addressing Arrazabal’s request for withholding of removal, the immigration judge found no credible evidence 

that upon his return he would be likely to be harmed by MS13, a rival gang, or the police. The judge observed that Arrazabal had lived in El Salvador for years without suffering 

serious harm. Moreover, the judge added, even if the evidence supported a finding that he would be harmed upon 

his return, Arrazabal could not show the necessary link between any such harm and a status protected by the statute

(race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social 

group, or political opinion, see 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(B)). Although former gang members can constitute a “particular 

social group” for purposes of withholding of removal, 

see Benitez-Ramos v. Holder, 589 F.3d 426, 429 (7th Cir. 2009), 

and Arrazabal’s tattoos made his association quite visible, 

the immigration judge thought that Arrazabal could not 

show that his association with MS-13 was severed, because 

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No. 15-2413 5

he had not taken any outward steps to renounce his membership in the gang.

As for Arrazabal’s claim for CAT relief, the immigration 

judge concluded that he had not shown that it was more 

likely than not that a public official would acquiesce in his 

torture. Not only, in the judge’s view, was Arrazabal’s testimony about being harmed in police custody incredible, but 

also it was not corroborated in any way—not by medical reports, witness statements, or otherwise. The immigration 

judge’s opinion drew no distinction between withholding 

and deferral of removal for purposes of CAT relief, probably 

because it appears on the face of the record that Arrazabal is 

eligible to apply for the withholding remedy.†

Faced with these unfavorable rulings, Arrazabal requested a continuance so that he could submit more evidence, including documents showing the level of gang violence in El 

Salvador and receipts confirming that his mother had sent 

him money with which to pay off the gang. The immigration 

judge denied the request as untimely and added that the 

proposed evidence would not have changed his decision.

Arrazabal appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, 

but it upheld the immigration judge’s determination as not 

clearly erroneous.

 † See Executive Office of Immigration Review Fact Sheet, “Asylum 

and Withholding of Removal, Convention Against Torture Protections” 

at 8, Jan. 15, 2009, available at https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/

files/eoir/legacy/2009/01/23/AsylumWithholdingCATProtections.pdf

(last visited March 21, 2016); see also Wanjiru v. Holder, 705 F.3d 258, 263–

64 (7th Cir. 2013).

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In his petition for review Arrazabal first challenges the 

immigration judge’s adverse credibility determination. He 

maintains that the judge should have accepted his account of 

his interactions with MS-13 and the police in El Salvador. But 

our review of an immigration judge’s adverse-credibility 

finding is deferential: we must uphold it so long as it is supported by substantial evidence. See Tawuo v. Lynch, 799 F.3d 

725, 727 (7th Cir. 2015). The immigration judge’s conclusions 

here meet that standard. Given Arrazabal’s implausible 

claims about police misconduct in the United States, the 

judge may have thought he had a tendency to embroider. 

That in turn may have led the judge to require greater corroboration that police misconduct in El Salvador threatened 

Arrazabal himself. See Zeqiri v. Mukasey, 529 F.3d 364, 371 

(7th Cir. 2008); Fedosseeva v. Gonzales, 492 F.3d 840, 847 

(7th Cir. 2007).

Notwithstanding the adverse-credibility finding, 

Arrazabal next argues, the immigration judge erred in finding that there was “no credible evidence” that he would face 

a clear probability of persecution if returned to El Salvador. 

This point has more traction. We agree with Arrazabal that 

the immigration judge overlooked key evidence. For example, there is no sign that the judge considered an affidavit 

from Arrazabal’s mother-in-law, with whom he had lived in 

El Salvador. Her testimony corroborated Arrazabal’s account 

of his arrest and beating by the Salvadoran police on account 

of his perceived gang affiliation, and his statement that MS13 members threatened to murder him and his family because of his refusal to participate in the gang. The affidavit 

had been read into the record by Arrazabal’s translator during the hearing. At the time the immigration judge said that 

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he would consider its contents, but he never referred to it in 

his decision. 

This was not a harmless oversight: it led the immigration 

judge to state, erroneously, that Arrazabal’s “claims that he 

was beaten by the police are not corroborated.” The motherin-law’s affidavit may not have been as specific as one would 

wish, but it did provide at least some corroboration for the

withholding and CAT claims. The immigration judge also 

overlooked a letter from Arrazabal’s uncle expressing concern that Arrazabal would be murdered by gang members if 

returned to El Salvador. We express no view about the accuracy of these documents. The problem is that the immigration judge’s decision says nothing about them, nor does it 

grapple with the views of Arrazabal’s relatives about the lifethreatening danger they believed he would face upon return.

Compounding our concerns about the immigration 

judge’s analysis is his rejection of Arrazabal’s contention that 

there was “no way to get out of the gang.” For this important 

finding, the judge relied exclusively on a feature article that 

appeared on a news website. The article touted the success 

of one pilot program in San Salvador that helps former gang 

members find jobs. But the immigration judge read too 

much into the article. Its description of one company’s decision to hire 30 former gang members does not establish that 

throughout El Salvador (a country of more than 6 million 

people), all “those who truly want to leave the gang and 

who are willing to actually try to leave the gang” (as the 

immigration judge put it) can do so.

Even more problematic is the immigration judge’s determination that even if Arrazabal had been harassed by MS-13 

members in El Salvador and could show a clear probability 

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of persecution if he were to be returned there, he still would 

not qualify for withholding because he had not shown that 

his persecution was because of his membership in a particular social group. The immigration judge acknowledged that 

this court has held that a group comprised of “tattooed, former Salvadoran gang members” would qualify. See BenitezRamos, 589 F.3d at 428–29. Nevertheless, he said that 

Arrazabal’s failure to take outward steps to renounce gang 

membership (meaning, perhaps, his failure to undergo the 

painful and expensive process of tattoo removal) automatically meant that he was an active rather than a former gang 

member and thus not a member of the latter social group. 

He may want to leave the gang, the immigration judge said, 

but “[g]ang members who have subjectively decided to leave 

are not socially distinct because only they know individually 

their own thoughts.” 

But the record shows that Arrazabal was not asking anyone to read his mind, and so the immigration judge was 

wrong to suggest that renunciation of membership required 

Arrazabal to take more visible steps to distance himself from 

the gang. Arrazabal testified that he did take objectively ascertainable steps: he repeatedly rebuffed the efforts of MS-13 

members to recruit him to commit crimes and regularly paid 

extortion money to avoid harm. If we accept that testimony 

as true (as the immigration judge implicitly did in this portion of his analysis), there is little more Arrazabal could have 

done to distance himself from the gang without putting himself at even more risk of reprisal.

We are also concerned about the manner in which the 

immigration judge rejected Arrazabal’s claim for CAT relief. 

The judge acknowledged that it was possible that Arrazabal 

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No. 15-2413 9

would be tortured in El Salvador with at least the acquiescence of the police, yet he concluded without elaboration

that Arrazabal had not met his burden of showing that result 

was “more likely than not.” See 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c)(2–3). 

But that oft-repeated phrase must be understood pragmatically in the immigration context, because there is no reliable 

data to show just how great an applicant’s risk of torture is. 

See, e.g., Gutierrez-Rostran v. Lynch, 810 F.3d 497, 501 (7th Cir. 

2016); Rodriguez-Molinero v. Lynch, 808 F.3d 1134, 1135–36 

(7th Cir. 2015); Yi–Tu Lian v. Ashcroft, 379 F.3d 457, 461 

(7th Cir. 2004). “All that can be said responsibly on the basis 

of actually obtainable information is that there is, or is not, a 

substantial risk that a given alien will be tortured if removed 

from the United States.” Rodriguez-Molinero, 808 F.3d at 

1135–36. 

Given these problems, Arrazabal’s case must be remanded to the Board for further proceedings. Because this is so, 

we need not address the question whether the immigration 

judge abused his discretion in denying Arrazabal’s request 

for a continuance. Accordingly, we GRANT the petition for 

review, VACATE the order of removal, and REMAND for 

further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

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