Opinion ID: 4390527
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Cartel Violence in Jalisco

Text: Based on the immigration judge’s unchallenged finding that petitioner was credible, we rely on his unrebutted testimony and the judge’s findings to lay out the relevant facts. Before fleeing his home, Gonzalez Ruano lived in the state of Jalisco, Mexico, with his wife and their two sons. Jalisco is the home of a ruthless drug cartel known as the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación or CJNG. In the last decade, the CJNG has expanded its operations throughout Mexico. It is infamous for routinely using brutality. The cartel operates under the creed “plata o plomo”—silver or lead—meaning it uses bribery or brutal violence to coerce compliance with its demands. Dr. Everard Meade testified as an expert witness for Gonzalez Ruano at the hearing on his applications. Dr. Meade explained: “those who’ve tried to stand up to [the CJNG] have been mercilessly targeted and kidnapped, tortured and murdered and in some cases, forcibly disappeared. There are many others who have co-existed with them through some form of cooptation. Sometimes this is about greed . . . most cases, however, it’s as much about fear and coercion as it is about greed.” Regarding the cartel’s widespread influence, Dr. Meade testified that CJNG is involved in weapons smuggling, money laun- dering, human smuggling, human traﬃcking, financial fraud. . . . [T]hey’re involved in various kinds of assassinations for hire, which are ad- junct to political corruption. In other words, they’re involved in the full panoply of illegal 4 No. 18-2337 activities in Mexico and this . . . expansion of the portfolio has increased exponentially since 2009, to the point that . . . selling illicit drugs in the United States is not even their largest busi- ness anymore. He also explained that the “impunity rate”—the percentage of homicides for which no suspect is detained or charged—in Mexico is a shocking 98–99%. He also provided examples to show how the Mexican government is unable to protect citizens from CJNG as a result of its methods and widespread influence.