Opinion ID: 4689051
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Statutory Withholding of Removal Under the

Text: Immigration and Nationality Act Through his petition, Galeas Figueroa challenges the BIA’s denial of his request for statutory withholding of removal under the INA. To be entitled to such withholding, an applicant must prove that it is more likely than not that he or she will be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion upon removal to a particular country. See 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A); see also INS v. Stevic, 467 U.S. 407, 429–30 (1984); Gonzalez-Posada v. Att’y Gen., 781 F.3d 677, 684 (3d Cir. 2015). If an applicant makes a showing of future persecution, then he or she cannot be removed to that country but may be removed to another country. See Doe v. Att’y Gen., 956 F.3d 135, 155 (3d Cir. 2020) (noting that “withholding of removal is nondiscretionary”); Abdulai v. Ashcroft, 239 F.3d 542, 545 (3d Cir. 2001) (“Withholding of removal . . . confers only the right not to be deported to a particular country—not a right to remain in this one.”). 4 Had the Government produced more probative evidence that Galeas Figueroa breached an order to report to custody, then dismissal under the fugitive disentitlement doctrine would have been appropriate. See Sapoundjev, 376 F.3d at 729 (“When an alien fails to report for custody, this sets up the situation . . . called ‘heads I win, tails you’ll never find me.’” (quoting Antonio-Martinez, 317 F.3d at 1093)). 14 Here, the BIA agreed with the Immigration Judge’s determination that Galeas Figueroa had demonstrated a likelihood of future harm on account of a protected ground (membership in a particular social group, his father’s family) upon his return to Honduras.5 But that alone does not suffice for persecution: the government must also be complicit to some degree in the harm through either act or omission. See Harutyunyan v. Gonzales, 421 F.3d 64, 68 (1st Cir. 2005) (“[P]ersecution always implies some connection to government action or inaction.”); Rodas-Mendoza v. INS, 246 F.3d 1237, 1240 (9th Cir. 2001) (“[V]iolence that the government does not sponsor and in which it is not complicit[] cannot support a reasonable fear of persecution.”). And the 5 The BIA reached that conclusion without affording Galeas Figueroa a presumption of future persecution: it determined that he did not establish past persecution and thus did not qualify for that presumption. See generally 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(b)(1) (providing that proof of past persecution raises a rebuttable presumption of future persecution). Galeas Figueroa disputes that finding, arguing that the BIA failed to consider the cumulative suffering he endured and that the limited harm considered by the BIA still suffices for persecution. But persecution is not established by harm alone, and the BIA concluded that the Honduran government was not sufficiently culpable for those prior harmful acts. Because, as explained infra, that separate determination regarding the involvement of the Honduran government was not erroneous, any error in assessing the magnitude of past harms was harmless. See Yuan v. Att’y Gen., 642 F.3d 420, 427 (3d Cir. 2011) (applying the harmless error doctrine to a final order of the BIA such that remand is unnecessary “when it is highly probable that the error did not affect the outcome of the case”). 15 BIA determined that the danger Galeas Figueroa feared from the Mara 18 gang did not sufficiently implicate acts or omissions of the Honduran government to constitute persecution. The BIA arrived at that conclusion by treating as interchangeable two legal standards for determining whether the harmful conduct of private actors may be attributed to the government. The first standard – the unable-or-unwilling-tocontrol test – evaluates whether the government was “unable or unwilling to control” the individual or group that committed the harm. Valdiviezo-Galdamez v. Att’y Gen., 502 F.3d 285, 288 (3d Cir. 2007) (citation omitted); see also In re Acosta, 19 I. & N. Dec. 211, 222 (B.I.A. 1985) (“[H]arm or suffering ha[s] to be inflicted either by the government of a country or by persons or an organization that the government was unable or unwilling to control.”). The second standard – the condoneor-complete-helplessness test – examines whether the “the government condoned the private actions or at least demonstrated a complete helplessness to protect the victims.” A-B-, 27 I. & N. Dec. at 337 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Galeas Figueroa challenges two aspects of the BIA’s analysis. First, he contends that the two legal tests are not interchangeable, submitting instead that the condone-orcomplete-helplessness test imposes a heightened standard, which the BIA erred by applying. Second, he argues that the unable-or-unwilling-to-control test should govern his case and that, under that test, he would be entitled to statutory withholding. As he sees it, the record lacks substantial evidence that the Honduran government would be able and 16 willing to control the Mara 18 gang. As explained below, neither argument succeeds.
Unwilling-to-Control Test and the Condone-or-Complete-Helplessness Test Galeas Figueroa’s challenge to the BIA’s denial of statutory withholding rests on his contention that the two legal standards for private-actor persecution are distinct and may not be treated as legal alternatives.6 That is an incorrect premise. 6 Related to his contention that the two standards for privateactor persecution are distinct, Galeas Figueroa also argues that through the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Congress incorporated the unableor-unwilling-to-control standard into the INA. But that is immaterial because, as explained infra, the two standards are legally equivalent. Moreover, it would be inappropriate to apply the prior construction canon here. That canon requires a settled meaning of a statutory provision at the time of that provision’s reenactment. See Lightfoot v. Cendant Mortg. Corp., 137 S. Ct. 553, 563 (2017); see also Bragdon v. Abbott, 524 U.S. 624, 645 (1998) (“When administrative and judicial interpretations have settled the meaning of an existing statutory provision, repetition of the same language in a new statute indicates, as a general matter, the intent to incorporate its administrative and judicial interpretations as well.”). And before IIRIRA’s enactment, courts had not uniformly applied the unable-or-willing-to-control formulation as the standard for private-actor persecution. See, e.g., Ghaly v. INS, 58 F.3d 1425, 1431 (9th Cir. 1995) (“[W]here private discrimination is 17 neither condoned by the state nor the prevailing social norm, it clearly does not amount to ‘persecution’ within the meaning of the Act.” (emphasis added)); Sotelo-Aquije v. Slattery, 17 F.3d 33, 37 (2d Cir. 1994) (“[T]he statute protects against persecution . . . by nongovernmental groups that the government cannot control.” (emphasis added)); Adebisi v. INS, 952 F.2d 910, 914 (5th Cir. 1992) (noting the unable-orunwilling-to-control test, but also finding that the feared harm “does not arise from activities instigated or sanctioned by” the government (emphasis added)); Rosa v. INS, 440 F.2d 100, 102 (1st Cir. 1971) (stating that nongovernmental acts may constitute persecution where the group “has sufficient de facto political power to carry out its purposes without effective hindrance” (emphasis added)); Dunat v. Hurney, 297 F.2d 744, 746 (3d Cir. 1961) (observing that the INA “does not concern itself with the manner in which physical persecution is inflicted, so long as that is the net effect of the forces or the circumstances that the . . . government will impose” (emphasis added)). Nor had the BIA. See, e.g., In re Maccaud, 14 I. & N. Dec. 429, 434 (B.I.A. 1973) (stating that “persecution must be at the hands of the government, unless the government cannot control the persecutors” (emphasis added)); In re Tan, 12 I. & N. Dec. 564, 568 (B.I.A. 1967) (“Mob action may be a ground for staying deportation under section 243(h) where it is established that a government cannot control the mob.” (emphasis added)); In re Eusaph, 10 I. & N. Dec. 453, 454–55 (B.I.A. 1964) (stating that private-actor persecution arises when the government is “unable to take proper measures to control individual cases of violence” or when the private violence is “the result of a program sponsored or tolerated” by the government or the result of acts which the government 18 Although the tests use different expressions, they are legally equivalent. Both tests have an overriding commonality: they recognize that to constitute persecution, the government must be complicit to some degree in the harmful conduct of nongovernmental actors through either act or omission. The unable-or-unwilling-to-control test does so by requiring that the feared harm be inflicted “by forces that the government is unable or unwilling to control.” Orellana v. Att’y Gen., 956 F.3d 171, 178 (3d Cir. 2020) (emphasis added); accord Acosta, 19 I. & N. Dec. at 222 (explaining that the harm must be inflicted “by persons or an organization that the government was unable or unwilling to control” (emphasis added)). Similarly, the condone-or-complete-helplessness test requires a showing “that the government condoned the private actions or at least demonstrated a complete helplessness to protect the “condones” (emphasis added)); In re Stojkovic, 10 I. & N. Dec. 281, 286–87 (B.I.A. 1963) (declining to decide “whether physical harm inflicted upon a person by a mob acting without governmental sanction” constitutes persecution because “there is no evidence that the authorities could not adequately protect respondent by controlling any outbursts of mob violence” (emphasis added)); In re Diaz, 10 I. & N. Dec. 199, 204–05 (B.I.A. 1963) (declining to decide whether “governmental authorities must inflict or sanction the physical persecution” (emphasis added)). 19 victims.” A-B-, 27 I. & N. Dec. at 337 (emphasis added) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Despite that commonality, the two tests are formulated differently. In the abstract, ‘complete helplessness’ suggests a greater incapacity than ‘unable to control.’ Similarly, untethered to context, ‘condone’ implies a degree of approval not necessarily present in ‘unwilling to control.’ But those terms do not operate in isolation; the words surrounding those terms affect their meaning. Notably, the tests measure the degree of the government’s relationship to different aspects of private-actor persecution – either to the private actor, the harmful conduct, or the victim. The unableor-unwilling-to-control test examines whether the government is unable or unwilling to control the private actor who inflicts harm. See Orellana, 956 F.3d at 178; Acosta, 19 I. & N. Dec. at 222. By contrast, the first component of the condone-orcomplete-helplessness test assesses whether the government condoned the harm. See A-B-, 27 I. & N. Dec. at 337. And the second component evaluates whether the government has demonstrated a complete helplessness to protect the potential victim of the private harm. See id. A proper comparison of the tests thus requires examining their effect as to the same aspect of private-actor persecution. And that can be done by examining how each test applies to the potential victim of private harm – the applicant seeking relief from removal. From that perspective, the unable-or-unwilling-to-control test is a shorthand of sorts. It depends on more than merely the government’s inability or unwillingness to control a violent 20 group in the abstract. Rather, that inability or unwillingness to control a violent group becomes relevant only in the context of a specific individual, the applicant. And a government’s inability or unwillingness to control a violent group as a general matter does not necessarily mean that the government cannot or will not protect the specific applicant. See Valdiviezo-Galdamez, 502 F.3d at 289 (linking the unable-orunwilling-to-control test to the government’s protection of the victim); see also In re McMullen, 17 I. & N. Dec. 542, 544–45 (B.I.A. 1980) (same). Accordingly, the unable-or-unwillingto-control test evaluates the government’s ability and willingness to control private actors not at a general level, but rather with respect to the specific applicant seeking relief. The condone-or-complete-helplessness test similarly focuses on the applicant, only more explicitly. The ‘complete helplessness’ component assesses the government’s ability to protect a particular applicant from private harmful conduct. And the ‘condone’ component examines whether the government condoned private harm to that applicant. Recognizing those differences, the corresponding parts of each test may be compared. The apparent capacity differential between ‘unable to control’ and ‘complete helplessness’ relates to different objects. The ‘unable to control’ prong describes the government’s power relative to private actors who intend to harm the applicant for asylum or withholding. The ‘complete helplessness’ prong describes a different relationship, the government’s power in relation to the potential victim. Calibrating for context, however, harmonizes the two standards: when the government is unable to control private actors with respect to a specific potential victim, it 21 demonstrates a complete helplessness to protect that victim from those actors. Surrounding words also aid comparison of the other analogous components of the two tests. The ‘unwilling to control’ prong describes the relationship between the government and a private actor as it affects the safety of the applicant for asylum or withholding. By contrast, the ‘condone’ prong describes the government’s relationship not to private actors, but to the harm those private actors inflict. Thus, those two standards – ‘unwilling to control’ and ‘condone’ – derive their meaning from separate objects. Accounting for that, the two standards converge – at least when a government is unwilling but able to control a violent group for purposes of protecting the applicant. In that case, when the government can protect the individual but does not, it condones the group’s harmful acts through its unwillingness to control the group. Nonetheless, the parity between the ‘condone’ and ‘unwilling to control’ prongs has a limit. While the two formulations cover the same ground when the government is unwilling but able to control a violent group, that congruence ceases when the government is unwilling and unable to control a violent group. In that latter circumstance, the government cannot be said to condone harm inflicted by a violent group that the government is unable to control. Therefore, the ‘condone’ prong is not coterminous with the ‘unwilling to control’ prong in all instances. But that gap is not fatal to the legal equivalence of the two tests. As explained above, when a government is unable to control a violent group with respect to a particular person, that 22 government is completely helpless to protect that person from that group. Thus, through the combined operation of the ‘condone’ and ‘complete helplessness’ prongs, the condoneor-complete-helplessness test becomes legally equivalent to the unable-or-unwilling-to-control test. By either condoning private harm or being completely helpless to protect a potential victim from such harm, a government is sufficiently culpable to have committed persecution. A broader perspective confirms that conclusion. The unable-or-unwilling-to-control standard governs four discrete factual scenarios of governmental responsiveness to privateactor harm: • Scenario 1 – able and willing to control the violent group; • Scenario 2 – unable but willing to control the violent group; • Scenario 3 – able but unwilling to control the violent group; and • Scenario 4 – unable and unwilling to control the violent group. Under the unable-or-unwilling-to-control test, a government is complicit in private-actor persecution in all but Scenario 1 – that is in Scenarios 2, 3, and 4. The condone-or-completehelplessness standard yields the same result. By operation of the ‘complete helplessness’ prong, the government is culpable for private harm in Scenarios 2 and 4 because in both instances the government is unable to protect the victim from the private actors. And the ‘condone’ prong renders the government complicit in private harm in Scenario 3. In that circumstance, 23 by having the ability but not the willingness to prevent the harm, the government condones the harm to the victim. Accordingly, both tests generate the same results in each of the four factual scenarios. For these reasons, the unable-or-unwilling-to-control test and the condone-or-complete-helplessness test are legally equivalent alternatives. Distilled to their essence, both tests stand for the same fundamental proposition: if a government is willing and able to afford some protection to an individual against harms inflicted by private actors, then that government is not sufficiently complicit in the private conduct for those acts to constitute persecution for purposes of relief from removal. Of the other circuits to consider this issue, all but one have reached a similar conclusion. Several circuits use the condoneor-complete-helplessness test as an alternative for the unableor-unwilling-to-control test. See, e.g., Guillen-Hernandez v. Holder, 592 F.3d 883, 886–87 (8th Cir. 2010); Shehu v. Gonzales, 443 F.3d 435, 437 (5th Cir. 2006); Galina v. INS, 213 F.3d 955, 958 (7th Cir. 2000); see also Kere v. Gonzales, 252 F. App’x 708, 712 (6th Cir. 2007). And some have expressly held that the two standards are the same. See Scarlett v. Barr, 957 F.3d 316, 331–34 (2d Cir. 2020); Gonzales-Veliz v. Barr, 938 F.3d 219, 233–34 (5th Cir. 2019); see also Rosales Justo v. Sessions, 895 F.3d 154, 166 n.9 (1st Cir. 2018) (describing A-B-’s description of the government-nexus requirement as “consistent with our precedent”). This conclusion also comports with the most recent interpretation by the former Acting Attorney General in an administratively precedential decision. That opinion, In re A-B- II, explained that “[t]he ‘complete helplessness’ language does not depart 24 from the ‘unable or unwilling’ standard; the two are interchangeable formulations.” 28 I. & N. Dec. 199, 200–02 (A.G. 2021). The sole outlier is the D.C. Circuit. It has rejected the legal equivalence of the tests, holding instead that the condone-orcomplete-helplessness test imposes a heightened standard for private-actor persecution claims. See Grace v. Barr, 965 F.3d 883, 897–900 (D.C. Cir. 2020). But that decision does not account for the combined effect of the two prongs of the condone-or-complete-helplessness test; instead, it isolates the standards from their surrounding words and overlooks the relationships they describe. See id. at 898–99. We are neither persuaded nor bound by that analysis.7 Instead, we align with the majority of circuits to have considered this issue by holding that the unable-or-unwilling-to-control test and the condoneor-complete-helplessness test are legally equivalent for purposes of evaluating private-actor persecution. 7 Although a partial affirmance of a nationwide injunction, the D.C. Circuit’s ruling in Grace does not govern this case. Galeas Figueroa was not a party to that litigation, and his petition does not relate to the enjoined conduct: the Government’s process for making credible fear determinations. See Grace v. Whitaker, 344 F. Supp. 3d 96, 105 (D.D.C. 2018) (permanently enjoining the government from continuing to apply credible fear policies). And even if Galeas Figueroa were within the scope of the limited injunction, it is uncertain whether the injunction of the A-B- decision has any lingering potency after A-B- II. 25
Determination of No Private-Actor Persecution Applying both the unable-or-unwilling-to-control test and the condone-or-complete-helplessness test, the BIA denied Galeas Figueroa’s application for statutory withholding. Specifically, the BIA found that Galeas Figueroa had failed to establish that the Honduran government “condoned the acts of violence or is completely helpless to protect victims of crime,” or is “unable or unwilling to control the feared gangs.” BIA Op. 2–3 (AR4–5). Those factual findings are subject to substantial-evidence review and may not be set aside “unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B); see also Doe, 956 F.3d at 140; Mendoza-Ordonez v. Att’y Gen., 869 F.3d 164, 170 n.15 (3d Cir. 2017). Galeas Figueroa contends that two pieces of record evidence compel the conclusion that the Honduran government cannot or will not control the Mara 18 gang. First, he cites the non-investigation and non-prosecution of the gang for its repeated violence toward his family, despite the filing of multiple police reports. Second, he relies on the State Department’s country conditions report for Honduras, which identifies the Mara 18 gang as among the criminal elements that “committed murders, extortion, kidnappings, human trafficking, and acts of intimidation against police, prosecutors, journalists, women, and human rights defenders.” U.S. Dep’t of State, Bureau of Democracy, H.R. and Lab., Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2016: Honduras 4 (2016) (AR499). 26 The BIA considered Galeas Figueroa’s evidence. It acknowledged that “multiple police reports were filed, without satisfactory results, when [Galeas Figueroa’s] family members were killed or harmed or he was threatened.” BIA Op. 2 (AR4). The BIA also recognized that, according to the country conditions report, “many murders in Honduras go unsolved,” and the government “has been unable to completely eradicate gangs.” Id. But the BIA ultimately determined that “the Honduran government has taken significant steps to combat gang violence and public corruption” – reflecting neither an inability nor an unwillingness to protect Galeas Figueroa from the gang. Id. at 2–3 (AR4–5). In addition, the BIA concluded that the lack of success in prosecuting the gang members for their past violent acts could be due to the vagueness and deficiencies in the police reports that Galeas Figueroa and his family filed – not the government’s condonation of the gang’s harmful acts or its complete helplessness to protect him. Indeed, one report was filed years after the incident, and most of the others did not even describe the assailants, let alone identify them as gang members. The BIA thus found that the record evidence, considered as a whole, was insufficient to justify relief. Because a reasonable adjudicator would not be compelled to reject that conclusion, substantial evidence supports the BIA’s denial of Galeas Figueroa’s application for statutory withholding of removal. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B); Espinosa-Cortez v. Att’y Gen., 607 F.3d 101, 106 (3d Cir. 2010) (recognizing that substantial-evidence review is “highly deferential” to the agency). 27