Opinion ID: 6103669
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Plancarte’s Evidence

Text: The IJ found Plancarte’s removal hearing testimony credible, and the BIA left this finding undisturbed. Although credibility alone is not “dispositive of both persuasiveness and legal sufficiency,” Garland v. Dai, 141 S. Ct. 1669, 1681 (2021), here there was no testimony or other evidence inconsistent with Plancarte’s recounting of her experiences, and there was no reason to doubt the truth, or “persuasiveness,” of her narrative, id. at 1680–81. See infra Section III.C. We therefore accept as true the following narrative based on her oral and written testimony. Plancarte is a licensed nurse from Arteaga, Michoacán, Mexico. She obtained the position after the Mayor of Arteaga recommended her to Dr. Tello, the director of the hospital. She wrote in her asylum application that the Mayor recommended her for the position “because I had treated cartel members before in silence and the Mayor wanted to keep me there to continue to work on cartel members.” Early in her employment at the hospital, Dr. Tello came to Plancarte’s home. He was accompanied by cartel members 10 PLANCARTE SAUCEDA V. GARLAND dressed in bulletproof vests and “belts with straps and knives.” Dr. Tello told Plancarte they were going to “heal some people.” Plancarte told the men she was off duty. One cartel member, known as “El Rojo,” said, “[W]e are not asking if you want to go. You are going.” The men took Plancarte to an aviation field, blindfolded her, and tied her hands with rope. They changed vehicles at the field and took her to a cabin. Once there, the men took off Plancarte’s blindfold and untied her hands. There were three people with bullet wounds in the cabin. Plancarte was told to treat them. El Rojo then took Plancarte to another cabin. Inside, there were three injured people who appeared to have been kidnapped. She saw three men “gang raping a young woman.” They also raped her with a “PVC pipe and tree branches.” “They made me watch and told me this would happen to me if I disobeyed them. I saw that the woman was unconscious, bleeding out, and dying, and I could not do anything to save her so she died.” El Rojo threatened Plancarte’s family with violence and told Plancarte that the cartel knew where she lived, knew where her family lived, and knew everything about her. Plancarte was later forced to care for cartel members and their family members at the hospital. The cartel members had private rooms, special guards, and no identifying paperwork. The police protected them by guarding the entrance to the hospital. Upon discharge, the police escorted the cartel members and their families out of the hospital. On a later occasion, El Rojo and two other men came to Plancarte’s home “in a hurry” and said, “[L]et’s go.” PLANCARTE SAUCEDA V. GARLAND 11 Plancarte had her infant son in her arms. She told the men she needed to set down her son. One of the men “snatched” Plancarte’s son from her arms and gave him to Plancarte’s mother. Another man pointed his gun at her mother and her son, and said that he was not joking. Plancarte was blindfolded, tied up, and taken to a house. Inside the house, Plancarte saw that two cartel members, El Rojo’s brother and another man, were injured. Dr. Tello and three or four other people were also inside the house. At the insistence of the cartel members, Plancarte treated the wounded men. She was repeatedly threatened with violence if she said anything about what she was being forced to do. “[T]hey said to me that I was going to go through the same thing [as] the girl I had seen, of how they killed her, of how they tortured her. . . . They would say that they would have to kill my mom or my son[.]” On a final occasion, Plancarte initially refused to go to an off-site location. Cartel members grabbed her and beat her until she bled, kidnapped her son, and forced her into a vehicle. Plancarte was taken to a house where there was a man who had been shot twice, in the stomach and the foot. Plancarte told the cartel members that she would do whatever they asked as long as she got her son back. After Plancarte treated the man, the cartel members took her back to her home at about 10:00 or 11:00 that night. Her son was there when she arrived. After this last episode, Plancarte fled to the United States. 12 PLANCARTE SAUCEDA V. GARLAND