UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________________ 

MARCELO BERNARDO AVILESRAMOS, 

 Petitioner, 

v. 

MERRICK B. GARLAND, United 

States Attorney General, 

 Respondent. 

No. 22-9569 

Petition for Review 

_______________________________________ 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

_______________________________________ 

Before BACHARACH, PHILLIPS, and EID, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

 This petition for judicial review involves a noncitizen’s application 

for asylum based on persecution from a criminal gang. To get asylum, the 

noncitizen needed to prove a nexus between his persecution and his 

membership in a particularized social group. Rodas-Orellana v. Holder, 

780 F.3d 982, 996 (10th Cir. 2015); Dallakoti v. Holder, 619 F.3d 1264, 

1267 (10th Cir. 2010). 

* This order and judgment does not constitute binding precedent except 

under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. 

But the order and judgment may be cited for its persuasive value if 

otherwise appropriate. Fed. R. App. P. 32.1(a); 10th Cir. R. 32.1(A). 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

November 28, 2023

Christopher M. Wolpert 

Clerk of Court

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For this nexus, the noncitizen alleged persecution based on his 

ownership of a business and past defiance of the gang. The immigration 

judge rejected this allegation, reasoning in part that the gang wasn’t 

targeting the noncitizen because he owned a business. The Board of 

Immigration Appeals dismissed the appeal. 

The noncitizen petitions us for review, and we address two issues: 

1. Did the Board err by focusing on the gang’s motive? We 

answer no. To determine why the gang targeted the noncitizen, 

the Board acted reasonably in focusing on the gang’s motive. 

2. Can we grant relief based on the immigration judge’s use of an 

alleged tautology when the noncitizen failed to alert the Board 

to the tautology? We answer no. Because the noncitizen 

violated a claim-processing rule by failing to raise this issue 

with the Board, we need not address the merits. 

1. Mr. Aviles-Ramos seeks asylum. 

The two issues arose from proceedings involving Mr. Marcelo 

Bernardo Aviles-Ramos, a citizen of El Salvador. El Salvador is plagued 

with gang violence, and Mr. Aviles-Ramos requested asylum in the United 

States. He based this request on his ownership of a business and his 

membership in a social group defined as “Salvadorian business owners 

who defy criminal organizations.” R. at 183, 356–69. The immigration 

judge found no nexus between membership in this social group and the 

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threat of persecution, and the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed an 

appellate challenge to this finding.1

 

2. The Board didn’t err in its approach to the nexus inquiry. 

Mr. Aviles-Ramos argues that the Board improperly focused on the 

gang’s motive and failed to correct the immigration judge’s use of a 

tautology. 

A. Gang’s Motive 

In part, Mr. Aviles-Ramos argues that the immigration judge erred by 

focusing on the gang’s motive. The government questions the need to 

address this argument, alleging noncompliance with our claim-processing 

rules. Under these rules, we can review Mr. Aviles-Ramos’s argument only 

if he exhausted available administrative remedies when he appealed to the 

Board. Santos-Zacaria v. Garland, 598 U.S. 411, 416–23 (2023). 

The government points out that Mr. Aviles-Ramos omitted this 

argument when appealing to the Board, arguing that this omission creates a 

claim-processing defect. Despite the government’s reliance on a claimprocessing defect, Mr. Aviles-Ramos’s reply brief omits any discussion of 

the government’s argument. Given this omission, Mr. Aviles-Ramos has 

1

 The immigration judge and Board also found that the proposed social 

group lacked particularization. We need not address that finding because 

Mr. Aviles-Ramos failed to show a nexus between his proposed social 

group and the persecution. 

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waived any non-obvious flaws in the government’s argument. Hasan v. AIG 

Prop. Cas. Co., 935 F.3d 1092, 1099 (10th Cir. 2019). 

The government’s argument doesn’t contain any obvious flaws: 

Mr. Aviles-Ramos needed to present the same legal theory to the Board, 

and he failed to mention the alleged error when appealing to the Board. See 

Garcia-Carbajal v. Holder, 625 F.3d 1233, 1237 (10th Cir. 2010); see also 

8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1) (“A court may review a final order of removal only 

if . . . the alien has exhausted all administrative remedies available to the 

alien as of right.”).

He nonetheless argues that the Board should have caught the 

immigration judge’s error. The Board had no obligation to conduct a sua 

sponte search for error, so this part of Mr. Aviles-Ramos’s argument 

creates a claim-processing defect. See Barrados-Zarate v. Barr, 981 F.3d 

603, 605 (7th Cir. 2020) (declining to address an unexhausted challenge 

because the Board of Immigration Appeals adheres to the same partypresentation rule that the courts of appeals follow). 

But Mr. Aviles-Ramos appears to go further, suggesting that the 

Board itself erred by focusing on the gang’s motive. In light of this 

suggestion, the government contends that Mr. Aviles-Ramos has also failed 

to exhaust a challenge involving the Board’s own error. But Mr. AvilesRamos arguably couldn’t have learned of the Board’s focus on motive 

before the Board issued its decision. In similar circumstances, some 

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circuits have held that noncitizens don’t need to appeal to the Board when 

they’re challenging errors that appeared for the first time in the Board’s 

own decision. See Olivas-Motta v. Whitaker, 910 F.3d 1271, 1280 (9th Cir. 

2018); Indrawati v. Att’y Gen., 779 F.3d 1284, 1299 (11th Cir. 2015).2

We need not decide whether to take this approach here because a 

challenge involving the Board’s own decision would fail on the merits. See 

Donnelly v. Controlled Application Rev. & Res. Prog. Unit, 37 F.4th 44, 56 

(2d Cir. 2022) (“[B]ecause mandatory claim-processing rules are not 

jurisdictional, we may assume that such rules are satisfied to resolve the 

case on other grounds.”); see also Ponce v. Garland, 70 F.4th 296, 300–01 

(5th Cir. 2023) (rejecting an asylum claim on the merits because the 

petitioner’s failure to exhaust his claim was not a jurisdictional defect).

To assess a nexus between the persecution and membership in a 

social group, the Board needed to consider the gang’s motive. See Aguilar 

v. Garland, 29 F.4th 1208, 1211–12 (10th Cir. 2022); Orellana-Recinos v. 

Garland, 993 F.3d 851, 856, 858 (10th Cir. 2021). For example, a nexus 

wouldn’t exist if Mr. Aviles-Ramos’s ownership of a business hadn’t 

2

 Mr. Aviles-Ramos might have been able to seek reconsideration or 

reopening. But our claim-processing rules didn’t require a motion to 

reconsider or reopen. See Santos-Zacaria v. Garland, 598 U.S. 411, 424–25 

(2023). 

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constituted a central reason for the gang’s persecution. Orellana-Recinos, 

993 F.3d at 856. 

Mr. Aviles-Ramos argues that the Board needed to focus on the 

characteristics of his social group rather than the gang’s motive. But he 

doesn’t say how the Board could evaluate the nexus without focusing on 

the gang’s motive. To the contrary, Mr. Aviles-Ramos stresses that the key 

question was why the gang had targeted him. The Board couldn’t answer 

that question without determining the gang’s motive for targeting certain 

groups. See Hamill v. Md. Cas. Co., 209 F.2d 338, 341 (10th Cir. 1954) 

(“Motive is the reason which leads the mind to desire that result.” (quoting 

James Stewart & Co. v. Law, 233 S.W. 2d 558, 561 (Tex. 1950))).3

Sidestepping an explanation for the difference between his why 

question and an inquiry involving motive, Mr. Aviles-Ramos cites a snippet 

from INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478 (1992). There a noncitizen 

3

 A leading legal dictionary defines motive: 

A reason, interest, or cause to do something. Motive is the 

purpose, reason, interest, condition, or belief that does or might 

be a cause for a person or entity to commit some act. In its most 

general sense, motive is sometimes used as a synonym for 

purpose, as in a legislature’s motive in enacting a statute. 

2 Bouvier’s Law Dict. 1788 (Sheppard gen. ed.); see also Webster’s Third 

New Int’l Dict. 1475 (Gove ed.-in-chief) (stating that the first definition of 

motive is “something within a person (as need, idea, organic state, or 

emotion) that incites him to action”). 

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sought asylum based on persecution for a political opinion after a guerilla 

organization had tried to conscript him. Id. at 479–80; see 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1101(a)(42). The Supreme Court explained that the statute protected the 

noncitizen’s political opinion, not the persecutor’s. Id. at 482. As a result, 

the noncitizen needed to show that he had been targeted based on his

political opinion, not the guerilla organization’s. Id. 

From this discussion, Mr. Aviles-Ramos suggests that the EliasZacarias Court was disregarding the guerrilla organization’s motive. This 

suggestion reflects a misinterpretation of the opinion. The Court was 

simply interpreting the statute to require a threat of persecution based on 

the noncitizen’s political opinion (rather than the persecutor’s). Id. The 

Court couldn’t—and didn’t—suggest that the persecutor’s motive was 

unimportant. To the contrary, the Court explained that the persecutor’s 

motive was “critical”: 

[The noncitizen] objects that he cannot be expected to provide 

direct proof of his persecutor’s motives. We do not require that. 

But since the statute makes motive critical, he must provide some 

evidence of it, direct or circumstantial. 

Id. at 483 (emphasis in original). Elias-Zacarias thus shows the critical 

role of motive in the inquiry on nexus. See Parsussimova v. Mukasey, 555 

F.3d 734, 739 (9th Cir. 2009); 4 see also Tamas-Mercea v. Reno, 222 F.3d 

4

 In Parussimova, the court explained: 

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417, 425–26 (7th Cir. 2000) (“The Supreme Court has made clear that the 

motive of those engaging in oppressive actions is a ‘critical’ element of the 

Immigration and Nationality Act.” (quoting Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. at 

483)). 

In criticizing the agency’s focus on motive, Mr. Aviles-Ramos 

asserts that the immigration judge erred because a group’s decision to 

persecute “a variety of individuals for a variety of different reasons does 

not function, in fact or law, to automatically transmogrify all the 

persecutory harm into random human suffering.” Petitioner’s Opening Br. 

at 21–22. The agency treats this assertion as a suggestion that the 

persecutor’s motives are irrelevant. Respondent’s Br. at 43. If this were 

Mr. Aviles-Ramos’s point, he didn’t raise it with the Board, which would 

prevent consideration. See pp. 3–4, above. 

As the Supreme Court held in Elias-Zacarias, the term “on 

account of” in [8 U.S.C.] § 1101(a)(42)(A) requires an asylum 

applicant to prove that she was persecuted “because of” a 

protected ground. This necessitates an assessment of the 

persecutor’s motives. Indeed, the [Immigration and Nationality 

Act] “makes motive critical” and, while it does not require the 

applicant to provide “direct proof of his persecutors’ motives,” 

it does demand “some evidence of [motive], direct or 

circumstantial.” 

555 F.3d at 739 (quoting INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 483 (1992); 

emphasis in original). 

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But we interpret Mr. Aviles-Ramos’s statement differently. His 

statement suggests that the immigration judge regarded the gang’s violence 

as random.5

 This suggestion is misguided because the immigration judge 

never characterized the gang’s violence as random. To the contrary, the 

immigration judge found that 

 the gang had chosen to persecute Salvadorians for various 

reasons and 

 these reasons hadn’t included ownership of a business. 

R. at 73.6

 We thus reject Mr. Aviles-Ramos’s suggestion that the 

immigration judge attributed the gang’s violence to random criminality. 

B. Tautology 

Mr. Aviles-Ramos also argues that the immigration judge engaged in 

a tautology, rejecting the existence of a nexus because the group itself 

wasn’t cognizable. Because we review the Board’s decision, rather than the 

immigration judge’s, we would ordinarily need to consider whether the 

5

 Mr. Aviles-Ramos’s brief to the Board also omitted this suggestion, 

but the respondent doesn’t address this suggestion. As a result, the 

government has arguably forfeited a challenge to this suggestion based on 

a claim-processing defect. See Santos-Zacaria v. Garland, 598 U.S. 411, 

423 (2023). Regardless of a possible forfeiture, however, Mr. AvilesRamos’s suggestion would fail on the merits. See p. 5, above. 

6

 In his reply brief, Mr. Aviles-Ramos appears to agree, acknowledging 

that the immigration judge found that “Salvadorian criminals target lots of 

people for all kinds of different reasons.” Petitioner’s Reply Br. at 14. 

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Board correctly applied the appropriate standard. Kabba v. Mukasey, 530 

F.3d 1239, 1245 (10th Cir. 2008). 

The Board didn’t address this issue because Mr. Aviles-Ramos hadn’t 

raised it with the Board. He had an obligation to present the Board with the 

same legal theory that he is raising here. See p. 4, above. But when 

Mr. Aviles-Ramos appealed to the Board, he didn’t mention the 

immigration judge’s alleged tautology. 

The government argues that Mr. Aviles-Ramos didn’t appeal this 

issue to the Board, and he doesn’t respond to this argument. That omission 

results in waiver of any non-obvious flaws in the government’s reliance on 

a claim-processing defect. See p. 3–4, above. In our view, the 

government’s argument involving a claim-processing defect doesn’t 

contain any obvious flaws; so we do not reach the merits of Mr. AvilesRamos’s allegation of a tautology. 

* * * 

We deny the petition for judicial review because the Board didn’t err 

in rejecting a nexus between the alleged persecution and Mr. AvilesRamos’s ownership of a business. 

 Entered for the Court 

 Robert E. Bacharach 

 Circuit Judge 

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