Opinion ID: 3156126
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Singled Out for Persecution as a Member of a

Text: Disfavored Group Even without evidence of a pattern or practice of persecution, Bringas could still establish a well-founded fear if he could demonstrate a particularized risk that he will be singled out for persecution if returned to Mexico. Bringas argues that he has been singled out in the past for mistreatment for his membership in the disfavored group of homosexual men, so he “has a ‘strong’ individualized risk of future harm.” The government argues that Bringas forfeited this claim when he failed to raise it before the BIA. We agree that Bringas failed to exhaust this argument before the BIA. Bringas failed to argue that he would be singled out for persecution as a member of a disfavored group in his brief to the BIA.10 He consequently has forfeited this claim. See Abebe v. Mukasey, 554 F.3d 1203, 1208 (9th Cir. 2009) (en banc) (per curiam) (holding that an alien is “deemed to have exhausted only those issues he raised and argued in his brief before the BIA”); see also Alvarado v. Holder, 759 F.3d 1121, 1126 n.4, 1128 (9th Cir. 2014) (“Although [a] petitioner need not . . . raise [his] precise argument in 10 In his brief to the BIA, Bringas argued that the IJ erred in failing to find that Bringas had a well-founded fear of persecution, stating that a well-founded fear can be shown by a pattern or practice of persecution. The sections of our cases that he cited concerned only pattern-or-practice evidence. One of the cases he cited, Wakkary v. Holder, 558 F.3d 1049, 1061 (9th Cir. 2009), discussed the singled out/disfavored group analysis at length, but not on the page that Bringas cited. He never argued that he would be singled out in the future as a member of a disfavored group. The BIA expressly recognized that Bringas failed to make this argument, observing in a footnote that Bringas “does not argue that his claim falls within the ‘disfavored group’ analysis espoused by the Ninth Circuit.” BRINGAS-RODRIGUEZ V. LYNCH 23 administrative proceedings, . . . [he] must specify which issues form the basis of the appeal.”) (alterations and emphasis in original) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). He argues that by raising his similar claim of a pattern or practice of anti-gay persecution, he necessarily exhausted his argument before the BIA. Not so. The pattern or practice argument is separate and distinct from the singled out/disfavored group argument, and we analyze them separately. E.g., Wakkary v. Holder, 558 F.3d 1049, 1061–62 (9th Cir. 2009). Unlike the pattern or practice analysis, the singled out/disfavored group analysis requires proof of an individualized risk of harm. See 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(2)(iii); see also Castro-Martinez, 674 F.3d at 1082; Wakkary, 558 F.3d at 1060–62; Sael, 386 F.3d at 925. Our holding in Castro-Martinez forecloses Bringas’s “pattern or practice of persecution” argument, and he failed to exhaust his argument that he will be “singled out” as a member of a “disfavored group.” Bringas has not demonstrated a well-founded fear of future persecution, and, accordingly, we deny the petition with respect to asylum and withholding of removal.