NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

LUCINDA CEJA CABADAS; NOEL 

JOSUE CISNEROS CEJA; DANNA 

PAOLA CISNEROS CEJA; SAUL 

ADALBERTO CISNEROS CEJA,

Petitioners,

v.

MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney 

General,

Respondent.

No. 23-2318

Agency Nos.

A208-605-640

A208-605-641

A208-605-642

A208-605-643

MEMORANDUM*

On Petition for Review of an Order of the

Board of Immigration Appeals

Submitted September 13, 2024**

San Francisco, California

Before: GOULD and BUMATAY, Circuit Judges, and COLLINS, District 

Judge.

***

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

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision 

without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

*** The Honorable Raner C. Collins, United States District Judge for the

District of Arizona, sitting by designation.

FILED

SEP 17 2024

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
2 23-2318

Lucinda Ceja Cabadas, a native and citizen of Mexico, seeks review of the 

Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order affirming the Immigration Judge’s 

(“IJ”) order denying her applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and 

protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) for herself and her 

children, who are derivatives of this petition. Because the BIA affirmed the IJ’s 

decision by citing Matter of Burbano while adding its own commentary, we review 

both decisions. Gonzalez-Castillo v. Garland, 47 F.4th 971, 976 (9th Cir. 2022). 

We review the legal determinations de novo and the factual determinations for 

substantial evidence. Parada v. Sessions, 902 F.3d 901, 908 (9th Cir. 2018); 

Nasrallah v. Barr, 590 U.S. 573, 584 (2020). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1252. We deny the petition.

1. The agency denied Ceja Cabadas’s applications for asylum and 

withholding of removal, and substantial evidence from the record does not compel 

a conclusion to the contrary. Ceja Cabadas proposed three particular social groups 

(“PSGs”): (1) Mexican Women Who Have Actively Opposed the Recruitment of 

Their Children; (2) Mexican Women Who Have Cooperated with Law 

Enforcement Against Criminal Organizations/Gangs; and (3) Ceja Cabadas’s 

Family Group Membership. The agency concluded that the proposed PSGs are

“amorphous, overbroad, and diffuse,” and we agree. Even if the first two groups 

were cognizable, the IJ found that Ceja Cabadas did not present evidence 
3 23-2318

suggesting that she had opposed the recruitment of her children into a gang or 

cartel, or that any cartel members were aware that Ceja Cabadas had reported their

three threatening phone calls to the police. Substantial evidence in the record does 

not compel a conclusion to the contrary. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B). As such, Ceja 

Cabadas cannot show that she belonged to either proposed PSG. See also Conde 

Quevedo v. Barr, 947 F.3d 1238, 1243 (9th Cir. 2020); Delgado-Ortiz v. Holder, 

600 F.3d 1148, 1151 (9th Cir. 2010); cf. Henriquez-Rivas v. Holder, 707 F.3d 1081 

(9th Cir. 2013) (en banc). Moreover, Ceja Cabadas’s third proposed PSG, family 

group membership, was not exhausted before the BIA. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1); see 

Santos-Zacaria v. Garland, 598 U.S. 411, 417–19 (2023); see also Abebe v. 

Mukasey, 554 F.3d 1203, 1208 (9th Cir. 2009). Similarly, to the extent that Ceja 

Cabadas proposes a “victims of gang violence” group in her petition to this panel, 

we cannot review this claim given that her application for asylum did not include 

this PSG such that the agency never considered it. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1); see 

Santos-Zacaria, 598 U.S. at 417–19.

Because the record does not compel the conclusion that Ceja Cabadas 

belongs to a cognizable PSG, she cannot meet the nexus requirement to show that 

the three unfulfilled threats she received from the Knights Templar were on 

account of her membership to a PSG. In any case, neither “harassment by 

criminals motivated by theft” nor “random violence by gang members” bear a 
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nexus to a protected ground. See Zetino v. Holder, 622 F.3d 1007, 1015–16 (9th 

Cir. 2010) (citation omitted).

The petition’s inability to meet the asylum standard necessarily means that 

the petition cannot meet the withholding-of-removal standard. See Navas v. 

INS,217 F.3d 646, 663 (9th Cir. 2000).

2. The agency did not err by denying Ceja Cabadas’s CAT claim. Under 

the CAT, a petitioner has the burden of proving that it is more likely than not that 

she would be tortured if removed to the proposed country of removal. 8 U.S.C. § 

208.16(c)(2). A petitioner must show that the torture would be “inflicted by or at 

the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official acting in 

an official capacity or other person acting in an official capacity.” 8 U.S.C. § 

208.18(a)(1). “Acquiescence” requires awareness of the activity prior to its 

occurrence and a breach of official legal responsibility to intervene to prevent the 

activity. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(7). “No person will be deemed to have breached a 

legal responsibility to intervene if such person is unable to intervene, or if the 

person intervenes but is unable to prevent the activity that constitutes torture.” Id.

The record indicates that the agency contemplated the likelihood of torture 

not only to Ceja Cabadas but also to her three children based on the agency’s 

consideration of the content of the cartel’s threats. Substantial evidence does not 

compel a contrary conclusion. While the record shows that Ceja Cabadas reported 
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the cartel’s threats to Mexican law-enforcement officials, substantial evidence does 

not compel the conclusion that any individuals acting in an official capacity would 

instigate or acquiesce to the harm threatened by the cartel rising to the level of 

torture. 8 U.S.C. § 208.18(a)(1); 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(7); see B.R. v. Garland, 26 

F.4th 827, 845 (9th Cir. 2022) (where “demoralizing ineffectiveness” to combat 

cartel activity “[did] not prove that the Mexican government would acquiesce in 

the torture of its citizens at the hands of cartels”); Andrade-Garcia v. Lynch, 828 

F.3d 829, 836 (9th Cir. 2016) (“[A] general ineffectiveness on the government’s 

part to investigate and prevent crime will not suffice to show acquiescence.”). The 

agency properly concluded that Petitioners did not show that they are more likely 

than not to be tortured upon removal.

PETITION DENIED.