+CORRECTED

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JUAN MAURICIO CASTILLO, 

Petitioner, 

 v. 

WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, 

Respondent.

No. 17-72544 

Agency No. A073-244-050 

MEMORANDUM*

On Petition for Review of an Order of the

Board of Immigration Appeals

Argued and Submitted January 15, 2019

San Francisco, California

Before: WALLACE and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges, and LASNIK,** District 

Judge.

Petitioner Juan Castillo petitions for review of a decision by the Board of 

Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) denying his request for deferral of removal under 

the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”).

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

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The Honorable Robert S. Lasnik, United States District Judge for the 

Western District of Washington, sitting by designation.

FILED

MAR 28 2019

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
 2 

We review the BIA’s decision for substantial evidence, reversing only if 

“the evidence compels the conclusion” that its decision was incorrect. Gu v. 

Gonzales, 454 F.3d 1014, 1018 (9th Cir. 2006). “[W]here, as here, the BIA 

reviewed the IJ’s decision for clear error and provided more than a ‘boilerplate 

opinion,’ we may . . . look to the ‘IJ’s oral decision as a guide to what lay behind 

the BIA’s conclusion[s].’” Guo v. Sessions, 897 F.3d 1208, 1214 n.4 (9th Cir. 

2018) (quoting Tekle v. Mukasey, 533 F.3d 1044, 1051 (9th Cir. 2008)). We will

review “the reasons explicitly identified by the BIA, and then examine the 

reasoning articulated in the IJ’s oral decision in support of those reasons.” Id.

(quoting Tekle, 533 F.3d at 1051).

1. We have jurisdiction over Castillo’s petition. See Pechenkov v. Holder, 

705 F.3d 444, 448 (9th Cir. 2012). 

2. The Agency erred in its consideration of Dr. Boerman’s testimony about 

the risk of torture faced by Castillo. The IJ “consider[ed] some of Dr. Boerman’s 

statements to be exaggerated.” One of the reasons the IJ gave for this conclusion 

was: “the notion that [the asserted] multi-agency governmental corruption is 

commonplace seems to contradict Dr. Boerman’s written declaration, which states 

that ‘[not all] Salvadoran officials are corrupt; there are thousands of public 

servants of the highest integrity, skill and professionalism.’” But there is no 

inherent contradiction between official corruption being commonplace and the 
 3 

existence of thousands of dedicated, honest public servants. 

Petitioner objected before the BIA to this illogical aspect of the IJ’s reasons 

for rejecting Dr. Boerman’s testimony.1

 But the BIA did not correct this error in 

reasoning or otherwise explain why it would deny Castillo’s CAT claim even 

without that aspect of the IJ’s reasoning. Seemingly in at least partial response to 

Castillo’s arguments about errors in the IJ’s evaluation of Dr. Boerman’s 

testimony, the BIA stated that the IJ had found Dr. Boerman “credible.” To the 

contrary, the IJ did not appear to find Dr. Boerman credible. The BIA did 

recognize that the IJ concluded Dr. Boerman “exaggerated the risk of harm to the 

applicant.” But the BIA discussed—and found no clear error in—only one of the 

several reasons that the IJ gave for discounting Dr. Boerman’s testimony: that the 

record was “devoid of any mention of immigration officials and police colluding to 

apprehend returning gang members.”2 In addition to not being responsive to 

Castillo’s argument regarding the IJ’s mis-perceived contradiction in Dr. 

Boerman’s report, by relying on this reason the Agency ignored the fact that Dr. 

Boerman’s own written report identified the problem of collusion between 

 1 In appealing to the BIA, Castillo argued, among other things, that the IJ 

erred in finding Dr. Boerman’s opinion that both corruption and a large number of 

honest officials could coexist was a contradiction, in light of the State Department 

reporting “say[ing] much the same thing.” 

2 In fact, the IJ had stated that “[t]he documentary evidence [was] devoid of 

any mention of immigration officials and police colluding to apprehend returning 

gang members.” 
 4 

immigration officials and police regarding treatment of returning gang members—

and, absent a proper reason to discount it, that report was part of the record. See 

Cordoba v. Holder, 726 F.3d 1106, 1114-15 (9th Cir. 2013) (discussing “credible 

expert testimony” of a professor as record evidence supporting the petitioner’s 

claim). The BIA thus relied on incorrect reasoning by the IJ, and did not provide 

any other sufficient reason to affirm the IJ’s conclusion that Dr. Boerman 

exaggerated the risks to Castillo. We thus remand so the BIA can reconsider Dr. 

Boerman’s testimony and its effect on Castillo’s CAT claim.

3. For efficiency, we reject two of Castillo’s remaining arguments.3

 The 

BIA did not impose an impermissibly high burden of proof on Castillo. “To 

qualify for CAT relief, a petitioner must establish that ‘it is more likely than not 

that he or she would be tortured if removed to the proposed country of removal.’” 

Cole v. Holder, 659 F.3d 762, 770 (9th Cir. 2011) (quoting 8 C.F.R. 

§ 208.16(c)(2)). Castillo must therefore show there is “a chance greater than fifty 

percent that he will be tortured if removed.” Id. (quoting Hamoui v. Ashcroft, 389 

F.3d 821, 827 (9th Cir. 2004)). The BIA properly articulated this standard. 

 3 Although our holding that the BIA erred is sufficient to resolve this 

petition, because the other issues raised in Castillo’s petition could arise again on 

remand and because they have been fully briefed, we review them here. See 

United States v. Mancuso, 718 F.3d 780, 796 (9th Cir. 2013); United States v. Van 

Alstyne, 584 F.3d 803, 817 n.14 (9th Cir. 2009); but see United States v. Nickle, 

816 F.3d 1230, 1237 n.6 (9th Cir. 2016). 
 5 

The BIA also did not impermissibly require that specific technical 

terminology be used in evidence supporting Petitioner’s claim. The BIA, and the 

IJ, did not discount evidence merely because it did not use the word “torture,” but 

because the conduct described in the relevant passages of the reports did not 

amount to torture. 

GRANTED and REMANDED.