IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-60126

MONICA ROCIO RAMOS LARA, 

 Petitioner

v.

LORETTA LYNCH, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, 

 Respondent

Petition for Review of an Order of the

Board of Immigration Appeals

Before STEWART, Chief Judge, and PRADO and SOUTHWICK, Circuit 

Judges.

LESLIE H. SOUTHWICK, Circuit Judge:

In January 2010, Monica Rocio Ramos Lara, a native and citizen of 

Bolivia, entered the United States from Mexico seeking asylum. The 

Immigration Judge denied her asylum application after holding she was 

ineligible under the firm-resettlement bar. The Board of Immigration Appeals 

dismissed Ramos Lara’s appeal because she failed to establish the applicability 

of an exception to that bar. We agree and DENY the petition for review. 

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

August 17, 2016

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Monica Rocio Ramos Lara is a native and citizen of Bolivia. In 2005,

Ramos Lara moved to Mexico from Bolivia. She claims the Bolivian military 

threatened her and her husband because she was not an indigenous native and 

her husband was a white male from the United States. She legally resided and 

worked in Mexico for the next five years as a substitute English teacher. She 

obtained a work visa from the Mexican government, which she last renewed in 

2009. Her husband traveled back and forth between the United States, where 

he was employed, and Mexico, where Ramos Lara lived with their two children.

Her husband is a citizen of the United States. The only evidence of his right 

to reside in Mexico is his wife’s cryptic statement that “just recently [Mexican 

authorities] sent the residency to my husband.” While living in Mexico, Ramos 

Lara made two trips from Mexico to Bolivia and the United States. She was 

permitted freely to return to Mexico after each trip outside the country. She 

had yet to apply for permanent residency, but she asserted that she was 

eligible and believed Mexico would have granted her residency. 

A few years after her move to Mexico, Ramos Lara claims a man named 

Jesse Ramirez approached her husband and asked him to smuggle drugs into 

the United States. He refused. According to Ramos Lara, Ramirez vaguely 

threatened that something bad was going to happen due to her husband’s 

refusal. Shortly afterwards, her husband was detained at the border and 

arrested after agents found marijuana in his car. Ramos Lara is unclear as to 

what happened with her husband’s criminal case following his arrest. She 

claims after her husband’s arrest, however, Ramirez called and approached her 

numerous times. 

Ramos Lara then attempted to enter the United States in January 2009. 

When she was detained, she claimed she was a United States citizen. After 

not being able to produce any documentation, she admitted she was not 

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actually a citizen. She stated she was afraid of returning to Bolivia but not to 

Mexico, where she had lived legally for the previous three years. She claims 

she made this statement because she and her husband decided not to tell 

anyone about Ramirez, fearing it would create more problems for them. She 

was deported back to Mexico. 

Ramos Lara then moved with her children on three separate occasions 

to avoid Ramirez, but he eventually found them and her car disappeared the 

next day. She claims that she reported her car stolen but did not make any 

progress with Mexican officials. 

After that incident, Ramos Lara attempted once again to enter the 

United States in January 2010. In February 2010, she was served with a 

Notice to Appear charging her as removable under 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I). She conceded removability and filed an application for 

asylum. After a hearing, the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denied Ramos Lara’s 

application and ordered her removed to Mexico or Bolivia. The IJ found Ramos 

Lara ineligible for asylum under the firm-resettlement bar because she had 

lived in Mexico since 2005, was permitted to work there, and was planning on 

obtaining permanent residency before she left Mexico in 2010. 

Ramos Lara timely appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals 

(“BIA”), arguing her residency in Mexico was a necessary consequence of her 

flight from Bolivia. If so, she may be eligible for an exception to the firmresettlement bar. The BIA concluded her argument was belied by the facts

that she lived with her children in Mexico and worked there for five years, 

never expressed a fear of returning to Mexico after travelling in and out of the 

country numerous times, and renewed her work visa in Mexico at least once. 

The BIA dismissed Ramos Lara’s appeal. She petitions this court for review.

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DISCUSSION

The Attorney General has discretion to grant asylum to refugees. See 8 

U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(A). An alien is statutorily barred from asylum if she was 

“firmly resettled in another country prior to arriving in the United States.” See 

id. § 1158(b)(2)(A)(vi). An alien is firmly resettled if prior to arriving in this 

country, she “entered into another country with, or while in that country 

received, an offer of permanent resident status, citizenship, or some other type 

of permanent resettlement,” unless the alien establishes that an exception 

applies. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.15. The necessary-consequence exception, relevant to 

this petition for review, provides that firm resettlement has not occurred if 

“entry into that country was a necessary consequence of [the alien’s] flight from 

persecution, that [the alien] remained in that country only as long as was 

necessary to arrange onward travel, and that [the alien] did not establish 

significant ties in that country . . . .” Id. § 1208.15(a). The BIA decided Ramos 

Lara did not establish that this exception applied. 

We review a final decision of the BIA and not that of the IJ unless the 

latter “affects the BIA’s decision” on appeal. See Zhu v. Gonzales, 493 F.3d 

588, 593 (5th Cir. 2007). Here, the BIA stated its own reasoning in determining 

that the IJ’s ruling was correct; consequently, we confine our review to the 

BIA’s decision. Id. at 593–94. 

As usual, we must identify and apply our standard of review. We review 

questions of law de novo, giving “considerable deference” to the BIA’s 

interpretation of the statutes it administers. Id. at 594. We have not 

previously decided in a published opinion the standard of review applicable to 

the key factual determination in this case, namely, the BIA’s finding about 

firm resettlement or its exceptions. See Shariatzadeh v. Ashcroft, 66 F. App’x 

523 (5th Cir. 2003). Neither party argues, though, that we should apply a 

different standard of review than we typically do when reviewing the BIA’s 

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factual determinations. We review most BIA factual findings for substantial 

evidence, which translates into upholding factual findings unless the evidence 

compels a contrary conclusion. Chen v. Gonzales, 470 F.3d 1131, 1134 (5th Cir. 

2006). We have applied that standard to the BIA’s factual determination that 

an alien is not eligible for asylum. Id. As to the BIA’s factual determinations 

about firm resettlement and the necessary-consequence exception, other 

circuits review for substantial evidence. See, e.g., Hanna v. Holder, 740 F.3d 

379, 394–98 (6th Cir. 2014); Maharaj v. Gonzales, 450 F.3d 961, 967 (9th Cir. 

2006); Rife v. Ashcroft, 374 F.3d 606, 610–12 (8th Cir. 2004). 

We hold that we must review the BIA’s factual determinations about 

firm resettlement and its exceptions for substantial evidence.

We next respond to a joint invitation issued to us by the parties at oral 

argument. We were encouraged to decide the validity of the BIA’s burdenshifting framework for determining whether firm resettlement has occurred. 

See A-G-G-, 25 I. & N. Dec. 486 (B.I.A. 2011). We respectfully decline. Ramos 

Lara did not challenge this framework in her petition. The only issue before 

us is whether the BIA erred in its determination that the necessaryconsequence exception did not apply. We need not examine the framework to 

make that determination. Our court reviews “only those issues presented to 

us . . . and [does] not craft new issues or otherwise search for them in the 

record.” United States v. Brace, 145 F.3d 247, 255 (5th Cir. 1998). 

The reason the framework is irrelevant is that on Ramos Lara’s appeal, 

the BIA concluded that she did “not meaningfully challenge the Immigration 

Judge’s finding that she did firmly resettle in Mexico,” a conclusion not 

disputed here. Therefore, Ramos Lara firmly resettled in Mexico, meaning she 

had received an “offer of permanent resident status, citizenship, or some other

type of permanent resettlement.” 8 C.F.R. § 1208.15. The only determination 

we can review concerns an exception to firm resettlement, which is whether 

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her living in Mexico was a necessary consequence of her flight from Bolivia. 

Id. § 1208.15(a). The BIA found against her. 

Ramos Lara first argues that the BIA erred because she did not have any 

permit to live or work in Mexico indefinitely. She claims Mexico never made 

her an offer of permanent residency. These arguments are relevant only to 

firm resettlement, which is not before us because she did not contest that issue 

with the BIA. See Wang v. Ashcroft, 260 F.3d 448, 452–53 (5th Cir. 2001).

As to the issue of necessary consequence, we find substantial evidence of 

all of the following. Ramos Lara attempted to enter the United States in 2009, 

but she did not seek asylum then or at other opportunities prior to her claim 

now. After being removed to Mexico, she renewed her work visa, lived and 

worked there for five years as a substitute English teacher, and thereby 

established “significant ties” to Mexico. She had also previously entered the 

United States in 2007 for the birth of one of her children; afterwards, she 

returned to Mexico. Although her children did not go to school in Mexico, they 

lived with her there. Her husband often commuted between the United States 

and Mexico in order to live with Ramos Lara and their children. 

Such evidence is substantial and supports the BIA’s finding that Ramos 

Lara was not in Mexico only “as long as was necessary to arrange onward 

travel.” 8 C.F.R. § 1208.15(a). 

The petition for review is DENIED. 

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