Opinion ID: 3156126
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Revisiting Castro-Martinez

Text: As noted above, I have growing doubts about our decision in Castro-Martinez. As the panel majority writes, the facts of Castro-Martinez resemble this case. In both cases, a gay, HIV-positive man sought asylum based on a long history of childhood abuse suffered in Mexico because of his sexuality. Id. at 1078–79. Both victims failed to report their abuse to Mexican officials. Id. at 1080. And both victims provided country reports describing anti-gay sentiments and persecution by Mexican authorities. The BIA denied asylum in both cases, on the ground that the victims failed to show that the Mexican government was unable or unwilling to control the abusers. Id. at 1081. We denied Castro-Martinez’s petition for review. We concluded that there was “no evidence in the record that Mexican authorities would have ignored the rape of a young child or that authorities were unable to provide a child protection against rape.” Id. We wrote that Castro-Martinez offered nothing more than his belief that “the police would not have helped him.” Id. “[S]uch a statement, without more, is not sufficient to fill the gaps in the record regarding how the Mexican government would have responded had Castro reported his attacks.” Id. If the only evidence Castro-Martinez offered had been his unsupported belief, I would continue to think our decision in that case was correct. Asylum seekers must show that “the 40 BRINGAS-RODRIGUEZ V. LYNCH government concerned was either unwilling or unable to control the persecuting individual or group.” Matter of Pierre, 15 I. & N. Dec. 461, 462 (BIA 1975). Unsubstantiated assertions that the government is unwilling or unable to control a persecutor do not suffice to carry that burden. Castro-Martinez, however, did offer evidence to show Mexican officials would not have helped him. As we wrote in our opinion, “Castro also stated that he was afraid of contacting the police because they would likely abuse him on account of his homosexuality. Castro presented country reports documenting police corruption and participation in torture, abuse, and trafficking, as well as incidents of police harassment of gay men.” Castro-Martinez, 674 F.3d at 1081. Despite this, we held that Castro-Martinez still had not carried his burden because “none of these reports compel the conclusion that the police would have disregarded or harmed a male child who reported being the victim of homosexual rape by another male.” Id. I have come to believe that Castro-Martinez demands an unwarranted level of specificity from country reports. In rejecting Castro-Martinez’s claim, we held that statements in country reports that Mexican police harassed homosexuals and ignored their claims of abuse was not enough. We required, instead, a statement in the report focusing specifically on gay children — a statement that Mexican police ignored reports by gay male children who were abused by other males. The panel majority here does the same. It discounts Bringas-Rodriguez’s evidence of governmental discrimination against homosexuals generally, and instead affirms the IJ’s conclusion that Bringas-Rodriguez failed to provide evidence showing that the Mexican government BRINGAS-RODRIGUEZ V. LYNCH 41 would not have responded to “the abuse of children.” Op. at 13–14, 18 (emphasis in original). Given the nature of crimes of sexual violence against children and the difficulty children face in reporting them, Castro-Martinez and the panel majority require evidence that few victims can supply. Many children will not report these crimes for some of the same reasons Bringas-Rodriguez did not. Abusers often threaten their victims with harm if they tell anyone, and they sometimes make good on those threats. Children also have difficulty getting information to the police, especially if family members or neighbors — the people who might report the abuse — are the abusers. By discounting country reports that describe discrimination against homosexuals generally and instead requiring reports specifically addressing gay children, Castro-Martinez effectively requires abused children to report to the police, either to provide relevant evidence for the country reports or to establish the requisites for asylum in their own cases.