[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 18-13290

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Agency No. A075-168-471

TOMMY MARTINEZ, 

 Petitioner,

 versus

U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, 

 Respondent.

________________________

Petition for Review of a Decision of the

Board of Immigration Appeals

________________________

(April 17, 2020)

Before BRANCH and MARCUS, Circuit Judges, and HUCK,

* District Judge.

PER CURIAM: 

Tommy Martinez, a native and citizen of Guatemala, seeks review of the 

Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) final order that dismissed his appeal from 

* Honorable Paul C. Huck, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Florida, 

sitting by designation.

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the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his application for deferral of removal 

under the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, 

or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (“CAT”), Dec. 10, 1984, S. Treaty Doc. 

No. 100–20 (1988), 1465 U.N.T.S. 85. He argues that the IJ and BIA erred in 

concluding that he was ineligible for CAT relief. After thorough review of the 

record and oral argument, we deny the petition for review.

We review only the BIA’s decision as the final agency decision, unless it 

expressly adopted the IJ’s opinion or agreed with the IJ’s reasoning. PerezZenteno v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 913 F.3d 1301, 1306 (11th Cir. 2019). If the BIA 

adopted or agreed with the reasoning of the IJ’s decision, we review both 

decisions. Id. 

We lack jurisdiction to review any final order of removal against an alien, 

like Martinez, who is removable by reason of having committed a criminal offense 

covered in 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii), unless the alien raises constitutional 

claims or questions of law. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1252(a)(2)(C) and (D). When we face a 

petition for review of an order denying a CAT claim from a petitioner like 

Martinez, we cannot review the administrative fact findings of the IJ or the BIA as 

to the sufficiency of the alien’s evidence or the likelihood that the alien will be 

tortured if returned to the country in question. Singh v. U.S. Atty. Gen., 561 F.3d 

1275, 1280 (11th Cir. 2009). However, whether a particular undisputed fact 

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pattern amounts to torture as a matter of law “requires a court to apply a legal 

definition to a set of undisputed or adjudicated historical facts” and is a “question 

of law” within the meaning of the statute. Id. (quotations omitted). Thus, we 

retain jurisdiction to review the BIA’s legal conclusion that Martinez had not 

established torture under CAT. Id. 

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), we “may review a final 

order of removal only if . . . the alien has exhausted all administrative remedies 

available to the alien as of right.” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1). We lack jurisdiction to 

consider a claim raised in a petition for review unless the petitioner has exhausted 

all administrative remedies related to that claim. Amaya-Artunduaga v. U.S. Att’y 

Gen., 463 F.3d 1247, 1250 (11th Cir. 2006). Accordingly, if the petitioner has not 

raised an issue before the BIA, we lack jurisdiction over it. See id. We do not 

consider issues that were not reached by the BIA. Gonzalez v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 

820 F.3d 399, 403 (11th Cir. 2016). Additionally, when an appellant fails to offer 

argument on an issue in his appellate brief, that issue is abandoned. Sepulveda v. 

U.S. Att’y Gen., 401 F.3d 1226, 1228 n.2 (11th Cir. 2005). 

CAT was “the product of a long-evolving international consensus against 

torture committed by official actors.” United States v. Belfast, 611 F.3d 783, 801 

(11th Cir. 2010). It provides, in relevant part, that “[n]o State Party shall expel, 

return . . . or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds 

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for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.” CAT art. 3, 

§ 1. Unlike asylum relief, which is discretionary, withholding of removal and 

relief under CAT, where warranted, is mandatory. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c). 

To establish eligibility under CAT and its implementing regulations, the 

alien bears the burden of proof to establish that it is more likely than not that he 

would be tortured if removed to the proposed country of removal. 8 C.F.R. § 

208.16(c)(2); Reyes-Sanchez v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 369 F.3d 1239, 1242 (11th Cir. 

2004). Torture is “an extreme form of cruel and inhuman treatment” and is defined 

as: 

any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, 

is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining 

from him or her or a third person information or a confession, 

punishing him or her for an act he or she or a third person has 

committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or 

coercing him or her or a third person, or for any reason based on 

discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is 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. 

8 C.F.R. § 208.18(a)(1), (2). To constitute torture, the actor must specifically 

intend to cause severe physical pain or suffering or threaten the alien with 

imminent death or severe pain and suffering. See id. § 208.18(a)(4). Any act that 

results in “unanticipated or unintended severity of pain and suffering is not 

torture.” Id. § 208.18(a)(5). To obtain CAT relief, the alien must demonstrate that 

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the torture would be inflicted by the government or that the government was aware 

of the torture and failed to intervene. Reyes-Sanchez, 369 F.3d at 1242. 

Tommy Martinez is a native and citizen of Guatemala who was ordered 

removed from the United States in 2009 following multiple forgery-related 

criminal convictions. According to the record, which is based largely on testimony 

from Martinez that the IJ deemed credible, Martinez was approached on his second 

day back in Guatemala by MS-18 (“Maras”) gang members, a widespread gang in 

Guatemala, who requested that he pay a $5,000 tax. Rather than responding to this

demand, Martinez “ran back to [his] aunt’s and uncle and told them what had 

happened and immediately [his] uncle told [him] that he had to get [Martinez] out 

of there.” Martinez did not call the police or otherwise report this incident to 

Guatemalan authorities. His uncle then took him to a house of his uncle’s in 

Palencia, “about 45 [minutes] to one hour away” from where he was approached, 

where Martinez lived without incident for about six months. 

In December 2009, while he was still in Palencia, Martinez borrowed his 

uncle’s truck and was stopped by the police. Two police officers interrogated 

Martinez about the payment he had yet to make and struck the back of his head 

with a pistol. Martinez recalled the Maras gang that had demanded he pay a tax 

upon his return to Guatemala, but he did not know how the gang and the police 

were connected and could not explain it. 

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Martinez then fled over the border to Mexico where he remained for several 

months before he returned to Guatemala because his grandmother was ill. At some 

point during his bus trip back to Guatemala, Martinez “had a seizure in the bus or

getting to the bus, . . . and [he] was taken to the hospital and woke up three days 

later.” Martinez was told that he’d “had a seizure” from “a hit [he’d received on 

the bus] directly to the back of [his] head,” which caused a hydrocephalus 

condition he’d had since birth to worsen, requiring the hospital to place a shunt in 

his brain. Martinez did not know who attacked him on the bus. 

Upon getting “the go-ahead from the doctors” at the hospital in Guatemala,

Martinez returned to Mexico, where he remained from June 2011 until March

2012, when he returned to the United States without authorization. Within two 

weeks of his return to the United States, his uncle, who had protected him during 

his time in Guatemala, was murdered. Martinez did not specify who killed his 

uncle but said that a week before the murder, “the Maras and the police” had 

visited his uncle about Martinez’s unpaid debt. Martinez also told the IJ that his

aunt Lorena, her husband, and their two children had been beheaded “by the Maras 

and the cops” in 2006. In addition, two other family members “directly related to 

[his] mother” were shot and killed in 2008, but Martinez did not know the details. 

After taking Martinez’s testimony, the IJ issued a written report denying

Martinez relief under CAT. The IJ determined that the past harm that Martinez 

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had experienced was not severe enough to constitute torture, because he was 

attacked by the police on only one occasion and, as for the bus attack, there was no 

evidence in the record suggesting how he was attacked or by whom. The IJ

acknowledged that Martinez’s hydrocephalus might result in severe pain for him 

but found no evidence that his attackers knew of his condition or that hitting him in 

the head would cause him serious injury. The IJ further determined that the harm 

that was suffered by his family did not demonstrate that Martinez would more 

likely than not be tortured upon his return to Guatemala because nothing he 

submitted indicated that the individuals who murdered his family were affiliated 

with the individuals who instructed him to pay the tax, the police officers who hit 

him with a gun, or the individuals who attacked him on the bus. 

The IJ also took administrative notice of the 2016 Guatemalan Human 

Rights Report (“Country Report”), which provided that criminal activity, gang 

violence, and police corruption were widespread in Guatemala. The IJ concluded 

that Martinez and his family did not suffer from a higher incidence of violence 

than did the rest of the population, and that Martinez had failed to demonstrate that 

the government had acquiesced to his torture. The IJ thus found that Martinez had 

not shown -- in the absence of past torture -- that he would more likely than not 

face officially sanctioned torture upon his return to Guatemala.

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Martinez appealed to the BIA, but it dismissed his appeal, agreeing with the 

IJ that he was ineligible for deferral of removal under CAT. As for the police 

officers’ attack, the BIA held that it was not torture because Martinez did not lose 

consciousness and he did not testify that he needed medical attention. As for the 

bus attack, which Martinez had not cited as evidence of torture to the BIA, the BIA 

determined that the incident was not torture because Martinez did not know who 

struck him or for what reason. The BIA “acknowledge[d] that [Martinez’s] 

hydrocephalus increased the severity of the injuries,” but found that the 

immigration judge “did not clearly err in finding that the attackers were unaware of 

this condition.” The BIA also concluded that his family members’ murders did not 

demonstrate that he had a probability of future torture because the record did not 

establish that the incidents were related. The BIA added that the IJ had not clearly 

erred in rejecting Martinez’s argument that the police officers who struck him were

cooperating with the gangs, noting that the police and gang members were from

different zones.1 Following the BIA’s dismissal of his appeal, Martinez filed a 

timely petition for review in this Court.

As a matter of law, on the record presented to this Court, we cannot say that 

Martinez’s treatment in Guatemala constituted torture under CAT. Martinez does 

1 Because Martinez had not shown a probability of future torture, the BIA declined to address the 

IJ’s “finding that a public official would not acquiesce to any torture.” fAnd because the BIA 

did not consider it, we will not reach that argument either. Gonzalez, 820 F.3d at 403.

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not challenge the agency’s finding that he “did not lose consciousness and did not 

testify that he needed medical attention” after he was hit in the head with a gun. 

Rather, Martinez argues that his medical condition, hydrocephalus -- which would 

potentially make Martinez more sensitive than the average person to being hit in 

the head -- would elevate whatever harm he suffered to constitute torture. While 

Martinez has demonstrated that he does, in fact, have hydrocephalus and that he 

likely would experience elevated pain in the event of an attack, standing alone, 

those undisputed facts do not amount to torture as a matter of law under CAT.

To constitute torture, which is defined as “an extreme form of cruel and 

inhuman treatment,” the actor must specifically intend to cause severe physical 

pain or suffering or threaten the alien with imminent death or severe pain and 

suffering. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.18(a)(2), (4). Any act that results in “unanticipated 

or unintended severity of pain and suffering is not torture.” Id. § 208.18(a)(5). 

Martinez’s injury, even when aggravated by his hydrocephalus condition, does not 

constitute torture under CAT because his elevated pain and suffering was 

“unanticipated or unintended,” and, notably, he did not show that his attackers 

were aware of his condition. While Martinez contends that “the shunts that have 

been permanently implanted in his head are easily visible to the naked eye,” this 

was not the case at the time of the incidents in Guatemala, nor has he shown 

anything more than speculation that the visible shunts “could” lead to torture in the 

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future. Id.2 Based on the undisputed record, we cannot sat that the BIA erred as a 

matter of law when it found that Martinez failed to establish that he more likely 

than not would be tortured.

Moreover, even if the police incident was considered cumulatively with the 

evidence of the Country Report and the murder of Martinez’s uncle, the BIA did 

not legally err in concluding that Martinez failed to establish torture as a matter of 

law under CAT. Although the Country Report indicates that police officers were 

often involved in unlawful killings, mistreatment, and extortion, Martinez did not 

produce any evidence suggesting that he would be singled out and targeted upon 

his return to Guatemala -- more so than would any other member of the population 

-- or that he otherwise would be likely to experience torture in Guatemala. See 8 

C.F.R. § 208.18(a)(1), (5) (defining torture as an act that is “specifically intended” 

to inflict severe pain or suffering for a proscribed purpose, including “for any 

reason based on discrimination of any kind”); see also Jean-Pierre v. U.S. Att’y 

Gen., 500 F.3d 1315, 1324 (11th Cir. 2007) (noting that CAT relief is not 

warranted where “petitioners . . . could not establish that they would be 

2 Martinez has abandoned any claim that the bus attack constituted torture this claim by not 

raising the argument on appeal to this Court, Sepulveda, 401 F.3d at 1228 n.2 -- as his lawyer 

explained at oral argument, Martinez is not relying on the bus attack because he could not say 

who perpetrated it. 

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individually and intentionally singled out for harsh treatment”) (emphasis in 

original).

Martinez’s testimony about his uncle’s murder, and the murders of other 

family members, unfortunately gets him no further. Other than general 

information about the murders and imprecise testimony that the murders were 

committed by “them” or “the Maras and the police,” Martinez offered nothing 

specific to link his family members’ murders with the people who threatened him 

in Guatemala. Accordingly, we deny the petition.3

PETITION DENIED. 

3 To the extent Martinez asks us to review any factual findings underlying the BIA’s conclusion 

that he failed to establish more likely than not that he would be tortured, we cannot. Singh, 561 

F.3d at 1280 (“[W]e may not review the administrative fact findings of the IJ or the BIA as to the 

sufficiency of the alien’s evidence and the likelihood that the alien will be tortured if returned to 

the country in question.”).

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