NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

NORMA CANDELERO PEREZ, 

Petitioner, 

 v. 

MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney 

General, 

Respondent.

No. 19-70900 

Agency No. A094-968-336 

MEMORANDUM*

On Petition for Review of an Order of the

Board of Immigration Appeals

Submitted March 3, 2021**

Pasadena, California

Before: HIGGINSON,*** HURWITZ, and COLLINS, Circuit Judges.

Norma Isabel Candelero Perez petitions for review of a decision of the 

Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) dismissing her appeal from an order of an

Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denying her request for asylum, withholding of removal, 

and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“Torture Convention”) and 

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as 

provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The panel unanimously concludes that this case is suitable for decision without 

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

*** The Honorable Stephen A. Higginson, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. 

Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sitting by designation.

FILED

OCT 12 2021

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
2 

ordering her removed to Guatemala. We have jurisdiction under § 242 of the 

Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”). 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review the 

agency’s legal conclusions de novo and its factual findings for substantial 

evidence. Bringas-Rodriguez v. Sessions, 850 F.3d 1051, 1059 (9th Cir. 2017) (en 

banc). A finding is supported by substantial evidence unless “‘any reasonable 

adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary’ based on the evidence 

in the record.” Ai Jun Zhi v. Holder, 751 F.3d 1088, 1091 (9th Cir. 2014) (quoting 

8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B)). We review claims of due process violations de novo. 

Yan Liu v. Holder, 640 F.3d 918, 930 (9th Cir. 2011). We deny the petition. 

1. Substantial evidence supports the agency’s conclusion that Candelero 

Perez was ineligible for asylum because she failed to establish past persecution or a 

well-founded fear of persecution “on account of race, religion, nationality, 

membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1101(a)(42)(A); see also id. § 1158(b)(1)(B). In contending that she established 

persecution on account of a protected ground, Candelero Perez relies on her 

asserted membership in two “particular social group[s]”1and an imputed “political 

opinion.” The agency held that Candelero Perez did not satisfy her burden of proof 

1 She also raises for the first time in this court a third particular social group: 

“Guatemalan women who report crimes against them[selves] to the police.” 

Because she failed to exhaust this argument before the agency, we lack jurisdiction 

to consider it. See Barron v. Ashcroft, 358 F.3d 674, 678 (9th Cir. 2004).
3 

because (1) her testimony was not credible, and (2) even if her testimony was taken 

as true, she failed to establish several elements of her asylum claim. We need not 

decide whether the adverse credibility determination was proper, because we agree 

that Candelero Perez’s asylum claim fails on independent grounds. 

a. Assuming without deciding that Candelero Perez’s two asserted particular 

social groups—(1) “Guatemalan Christian women unable to leave a forced 

romantic relationship with a powerful pastor” and (2) “Guatemalan Christian 

women who refused to comply with the sexual orders of a powerful pastor with 

government connections”—are cognizable, we conclude that substantial evidence 

supports the agency’s finding that Candelero Perez’s pastor did not sexually abuse 

her on account of her asserted membership in either group. Because, by definition, 

her membership in the first group required the pastor’s abuse to have already 

begun, the IJ reasonably concluded that the initial abuse could not have been 

motivated by such membership. And, on this record, the agency further 

permissibly concluded that, once the abuse began, the pastor was not motivated, 

and would not be motivated in the future, by Candelero Perez’s asserted

membership in either group. Substantial evidence therefore supports the agency’s

determination that the pastor was “motivated by his own deviant sexual desires 

rather than by [Candelero Perez’s] membership in one of the proposed [social] 

groups.” 
4 

b. Assuming without deciding that being “anti-crime” reflects a cognizable

political opinion, substantial evidence supports the agency’s finding that Candelero 

Perez’s harassment by a man named Anibal was not “on account of an actual or 

imputed political opinion.” Candelero Perez testified that Anibal wanted her to 

help him deposit checks for a money-laundering scheme “because [she] was an 

employee at the bank.” The agency permissibly concluded that Candelero Perez 

had not “presented evidence suggesting that Anibal believed she held any 

particular political opinion.”2

Because the agency permissibly concluded that Candelero Perez had “not 

established that she was or will be persecuted in Guatemala on account of a 

protected ground,” substantial evidence supports the denial of her claim for 

asylum. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B). 

2. Substantial evidence supports the agency’s finding that the pastor’s 

sexual abuse and Anibal’s harassment were only motivated by their respective 

criminal desires, not “on account of a protected ground.” The agency reasonably 

concluded that Candelero Perez failed to establish that any protected ground was a 

2 Candelero Perez briefly suggests on appeal that Anibal targeted her on account of 

her membership in one of the two particular social groups. She also suggests on 

appeal that her imputed political opinion was actually “anti-crime due to her 

Christian morals.” However, she failed to exhaust either argument before the 

agency, and we thus lack jurisdiction to consider them now. See Barron, 358 F.3d 

at 678. 
5 

reason for any of the mistreatment, as required for withholding of removal claims.

See Barajas-Romero v. Lynch, 846 F.3d 351, 360 (9th Cir. 2017). 

3. To qualify for Torture Convention protection, Candelero Perez was 

required to establish that, if removed to Guatemala, “it is more likely than not that 

. . . she would be tortured,” 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c)(2), and that the torture would be 

“‘inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a 

public official or other person acting in an official capacity.’” Zheng v. Ashcroft, 

332 F.3d 1186, 1188 (9th Cir. 2003) (citation omitted). Substantial evidence 

supports the agency’s conclusion that Candelero Perez has “not shown that a 

government official . . . would acquiesce to any future harm.”

a. Candelero Perez never reported the pastor’s sexual abuse to the police. 

She argues that reporting would have been futile because the pastor “had 

connections with the mayors of the municipality and . . . was very powerful and 

recognized” locally. But the record indicates that after Candelero Perez told her 

sister about the abuse, the pastor tried to intimidate her with verbal threats and, on 

one occasion, he veered his car toward her on the street and said that she was not 

going to be the reason why he would lose his place in society. Based on such 

evidence, the agency concluded that “the pastor’s anger after he learned that 

[Candelero Perez] told her sister about the abuse suggests that the pastor feared the 

consequences” of a public accusation and that futility therefore was not 
6 

demonstrated. We cannot say that this was an unreasonable reading of the record 

evidence or that the record compels a contrary conclusion. The BIA also 

reasonably found that documentary evidence in the record indicates that the 

Guatemalan “government has made substantial efforts to combat violence against 

women and protect victims of abuse.” This evidence, which Candelero Perez fails 

to address in her briefing to this court, further supports the conclusion that she did 

not establish the futility of reporting the pastor. 

b. Candelero Perez argues that the police refused to help after she reported 

Anibal and instead laughed, told her to pay for private security, and did not arrest 

him. Her own testimony and declaration, however, reflect that the police 

summoned Anibal after she reported him and increased their presence in her 

neighborhood. And because she failed to properly submit the police report to the 

immigration court, the agency permissibly concluded that the reason why Anibal 

was not arrested had not been established. Candelero Perez also argued that

Anibal had “government ties,” namely that his uncle was then the mayor,

3 but the 

record reflects that the uncle himself has been charged with a crime. On this 

record, substantial evidence supports the agency’s conclusion that Candelero Perez 

3 She also mentions that “Anibal worked for the municipality,” but she does not 

explain how his employment would equate to government acquiescence, and she 

did not show that Anibal intended to commit money laundering or harass 

Candelero Perez on behalf of the government.
7 

did not establish that Anibal was “immune from future prosecution.” 

Because Candelero Perez failed to establish that the government would 

acquiesce to any future torture, her request for protection under the Torture 

Convention was properly denied. See Zheng, 332 F.3d at 1188.

4. Finally, the BIA properly rejected Candelero Perez’s assertion that the IJ 

displayed improper bias against her in violation of due process. The hearing 

transcript reflects that the IJ was frustrated at times with both Candelero Perez and 

her attorney, correcting them on many occasions for, inter alia, the form of the 

attorney’s questions and Candelero Perez’s answers. The transcript also confirms 

that the IJ asked Candelero Perez several questions, including leading questions,

and that he sua sponte played a recording from a past removal hearing, during 

which Candelero Perez failed to cite the pastor’s sexual abuse as a reason she left 

Guatemala. But the IJ did not display a “‘predisposition to discredit’” Petitioner’s 

testimony, see Yan Liu, 640 F.3d at 931 (citation omitted), nor did he act as a 

“partisan adjudicator,” see Colmenar v. INS, 210 F.3d 967, 971 (9th Cir. 2000). 

Rather, he exercised his express statutory authority to “interrogate, examine, and 

cross-examine the alien and any witnesses,” see 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(b)(1); see also 

Halaim v. INS, 358 F.3d 1128, 1137 (9th Cir. 2004), and sought to control the 

manner and pace of the proceeding and to clear up inconsistencies as part of his 

duty to “fully develop the record,” see Jacinto v. INS, 208 F.3d 725, 734 (9th Cir. 
8 

2000). Candelero Perez also claims that the IJ’s questions inappropriately

“blame[d]” her for the sexual assaults she suffered. However, the questioning did 

not evince improper bias in light of the IJ’s duty to develop the record, and the IJ’s 

ultimate written decision blamed the pastor, describing him as a “sick individual” 

who had committed a “heinous sex crime against a minor” in order to “satisfy his 

own psychopathy and pedophilia.” 

Candelero Perez does not argue that any of the IJ’s conduct “prevented [her] 

from reasonably presenting” any evidence that would have strengthened her 

claims, see Ibarra-Flores v. Gonzales, 439 F.3d 614, 620–21 (9th Cir. 2006); see

also Almaghzar v. Gonzales, 457 F.3d 915, 922 (9th Cir. 2006), and instead only 

argues that the IJ’s alleged bias led him to find her not credible. However, because

we have concluded that the “factual record adequately supports the denial of [her] 

application for relief” even assuming Candelero Perez’s credibility, we “cannot 

find that [any] alleged bias held by the IJ was the basis for the denial of the 

application.” See Vargas-Hernandez v. Gonzalez, 497 F.3d 919, 926 (9th Cir. 

2007); Hassan v. INS, 927 F.2d 465, 469 (9th Cir. 1991). 

The petition is DENIED.