Opinion ID: 4564884
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: “Unable or Unwilling”

Text: “In order to establish eligibility for asylum on the basis of past persecution, an applicant must show: (1) an incident, or incidents, that rise to the level of persecution; (2) that is on account of one of the statutorily-protected grounds; and (3) is committed by the government or forces the government is either unable or unwilling to control.” Navas v. INS, 217 F.3d 646, 655–56 (9th Cir. 2000) (footnotes and internal quotation marks omitted); 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). The BIA and IJ declined to address the first two requirements and denied relief based on the third requirement alone. For the reasons that follow, we hold that substantial evidence does not support the BIA’s conclusion that the El Salvadoran government was both able and willing to control the Mara-18 gang whose members attacked JR and killed his son. Because the Mara-18 gang members are nongovernmental actors, JR must show that the El Salvadoran government is “unable or unwilling” to control them. See Doe v. Holder, 736 F.3d 871, 877–78 (9th Cir. 2013); 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). The BIA focused on the government’s 10 J.R. V. BARR responses to JR’s complaints, such as arresting his nephew and relocating JR’s family after JR agreed to testify against the gang members. Some official responsiveness to complaints of violence, although relevant, does not automatically equate to governmental ability and willingness. “Even if [an applicant’s] ability to file a police report suggests that the police were willing to protect [him], that says little if anything about whether they were able to do so.” Afriyie v. Holder, 613 F.3d 924, 931 (9th Cir. 2010), overruled on other grounds by Bringas-Rodriguez, 850 F.3d at 1070. Willingness to control persecutors notwithstanding, authorities may nevertheless be “powerless to stop” them because of a “lack of . . . resources or because of the character or pervasiveness of the persecution.” Id. We have previously held, for example, that the BIA erred by “focus[ing] only on the Mexican government’s willingness to control Los Zetas, not its ability to do so.” Madrigal v. Holder, 716 F.3d 499, 506 (9th Cir. 2013). Conversely, authorities may simply be unwilling to control persecutors, where, for instance, they themselves harbor animus towards a protected group. See, e.g., Korablina v. INS, 158 F.3d 1038, 1045 (9th Cir. 1998) (“[T]he police, known as the militia, are a part of the same ultra-nationalist and anti-Semitic group, and . . . the State does not make any effort to protect Jews or to stop antiSemitism.”); Mashiri v. Ashcroft, 383 F.3d 1112, 1121–22 (9th Cir. 2004). In other words, the question on this step is whether the government both “could and would provide protection.” Rahimzadeh v. Holder, 613 F.3d 916, 923 (9th Cir. 2010) (emphasis added). The record before the IJ and BIA compels the conclusion that, despite initial responsiveness to JR’s complaints, the J.R. V. BARR 11 police were unable, and then unwilling, to protect JR and his family from the Mara-18 gang. After a gang member cut off two of his fingers, JR reported the crime, and the member was briefly imprisoned. However, after that incident, gang members shot JR seven times. JR survived, but lost one of his lungs. A few months later, the gang murdered JR’s son at home. After reporting the murder and agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors, JR received a death threat from the local “boss” of the gang. Although the government provided protection before JR gave his testimony, it withdrew that protection after he testified. Had the government been willing to continue to provide effective protection, JR would have lacked a viable claim, for the government would have been both willing and able to protect him. But the question is whether the government both “could and would provide protection” from private persecutors. Rahimzadeh, 613 F.3d at 923 (emphasis added). Even if the government could protect JR and his family, it is undisputed that, after JR finished testifying, it no longer would do so. Given its withdrawal of protection, the El Salvadoran government was, in fact, “unwilling to protect” JR. Afriyie, 613 F.3d at 931. Two months after the government refused to provide protection, JR fled the country with his family. While the family was not harmed by the gang during those two months, “a post-threat harmless period need not vanquish an asylum claim, particularly where significant evidence suggests that the threats are becoming more menacing.” Kaiser v. Ashcroft, 390 F.3d 653, 659 (9th Cir. 2004) (quoting Lim v. INS, 224 F.3d 929, 935 (9th Cir. 2000)). In Kaiser, we found that petitioners who had received death threats for thirteen years—“none of [which] had been carried out”—still carried 12 J.R. V. BARR their burden to show government inability and unwillingness. Id. There, petitioners had shown that the threats had increased in frequency and severity, one of the petitioner’s colleagues had been murdered, and documentary evidence illustrated the persecutor’s “willingness to use violence to further its objectives.” Id.; see also Lin, 224 F.3d at 935 (petitioner’s failure to flee for six years after the first death threat did not defeat asylum claim). As in Kaiser, the country conditions evidence supports JR’s undisputed testimony about gang members’ “willingness to use violence to further [the gang’s] objectives.” Kaiser, 390 F.3d at 659. As a May 2016 news story in the record reports, the Supreme Court of El Salvador designated the Mara-18 gang as a “terrorist organization” just months before the murder of JR’s son. It further notes that the government’s strategy against the gangs “has so far failed to pay security dividends.” At about the time JR and his family suffered their attacks, El Salvador “became the most homicidal nation . . . in the world not at war.” The country conditions report notes that “more than one in five families claim to have been victims of violent crimes,” and that “[i]n many neighborhoods, armed groups and gangs targeted certain persons, interfered with privacy, family, and home life, and created a climate of fear that the authorities were not capable of restoring to normal.” The government argues that the protection provided to JR and his family “confirms that the government is neither unable nor unwilling to extend protection.” The government cites Doe v. Holder, 736 F.3d 871 (9th Cir. 2013), contending that it held that an “applicant fails to carry his burden where, as here, police take reports and indicate that they will investigate an alleged crime.” Doe did not so hold. Doe held J.R. V. BARR 13 instead that “where the asylum applicant failed to provide the police with sufficiently specific information to permit an investigation or an arrest,” the police’s inability to solve a crime does not show government inability or unwillingness to control persecutors. Doe, 736 F.3d at 878; see also Afriyie, 613 F.3d at 931 (taking of report by police does not show government ability). Other cases cited by the government are unhelpful to the government for this reason. See, e.g., Truong v. Holder, 613 F.3d 938, 941 (9th Cir. 2010) (petitioners did not know “who their assailants were and what motivations they may have had”); Nahrvani v. Gonzales, 399 F.3d 1148, 1154 (9th Cir. 2005) (petitioner did not give police names of any suspects). Here, JR filed a police report after a gang member cut off two of his fingers. Members of the gang thereafter shot JR seven times, and then shot and killed JR’s son on the front porch of his house. When JR refused to withdraw a police report after the death of his son, the “boss” of the gang warned JR: “So then he said—so you will die, he told me.” Gang members were “looking for [him] every day to kill [him].” When JR testified against the gang members in open court, resulting in their eventual conviction and imprisonment, the El Salvadoran judge urged him to flee. It is undisputed that the El Salvadoran government withdrew its protection from JR and his family after he testified. Soon thereafter, JR and his family fled the country. Our dissenting colleague lists several actions of the El Salvadoran government, concluding that JR has not shown that the government was either unwilling or unable to protect him. However, the dissent focuses solely on the government’s protection during the time leading up to JR’s testimony. It ignores the fact that after JR finished testifying 14 J.R. V. BARR in support of the prosecution, the government was no longer willing to protect him. The undisputed factual record that was before the IJ and BIA reflects actual deadly violence that the government was, during certain periods, unable to control, and threats of additional deadly violence that the government was entirely unwilling to control after JR testified. This is enough. Our law does not require applicants to wait until gang members carry out their deadly threats before they are eligible for asylum. Substantial evidence does not support the BIA’s determination otherwise.