Opinion ID: 178348
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Persecution by former guerillas

Text: Ralios Morente argues that he has a well-founded fear of future persecution because former members of the guerilla movement still hold the same opinions about former members of the Civil Patrol. He notes that his family received threatening letters until they left Guatemala in 2002. He also contends that the State Department Reports do not conflict with this assertion as they describe ongoing strife relating to the Civil War. Moreover, Ralios Morente maintains that the Guatemalan National Police appear to be unable to prevent the harm he fears. Respondent contends that the BIA’s finding is supported by substantial evidence because the Guatemalan Civil War ended in 1996 and there is no evidence that the former guerillas Ralios Morente fears remain active. The BIA found Ralios Morente’s concern that former guerillas will seek to harm him to be speculative. A.R. 4; J.A. 8. In another case in which the petitioner feared persecution from former guerilla members in Guatemala, this court observed: Despite formal cessation of the civil war, Sanic alleges that the fighting continues based on reports from his father. But, Sanic’s speculations are not sufficient to compel a finding that the Guatemalan government and guerrillas continue to fight or that guerrilla forces remain active. Several sister circuits have held that the formal end to the Guatemalan civil war undermined or eliminated the threat of future persecution by guerrilla forces. See, e.g., De Leon v. Gonzales, 153 F. App’x 3, 6 n. 4 (1st Cir. 2005) (asylum applicant lacked well-founded fear of persecution on return to Guatemala because peace accords had been signed and the civil war was over); Ordonez Tumax v. Ashcroft, 79 F. App’x 642, 644 (5th Cir. 2003) (finding substantial evidence supported the IJ’s finding that Guatemalan peace accord eliminated the possibility that petitioner would not be pressured to join guerrillas); Ramos-Ortiz v. Ashcroft, 70 F. App’x 68, 72 (3d Cir. 2003) (relying on the signing of peace accords in Guatemala to agree with IJ that petitioner did not face a well-founded fear of future persecution). In light of the end of the civil war and absence of evidence to suggest that guerrillas remain active, this Court is not 09-3830 Ralios Morente v. Holder Page 12 compelled by the record to find that Sanic’s fear of reprisal or recruitment by guerrilla forces is well-founded. Sanic v. Holder, 343 F. App’x 62, 69 (6th Cir. 2009). The same principle applies in the instant case. By the time the BIA issued its decision in June 2009, the Civil War had been over for more than twelve years. As in Sanic, the end of the Civil War and the passage of time undercut Ralios Morente’s assertion that former guerillas will seek to harm him because of his actual or imputed progovernment opinions. For these reasons, the record does not compel reversal of the BIA’s finding that Ralios Morente failed to demonstrate a well-founded fear of future persecution by former guerillas. The BIA also concluded that Ralios Morente failed to establish that the Guatemalan government is unwilling or unable to control the former guerillas who seek to harm him. “‘When an asylum claim focuses on non-governmental conduct, its fate depends on some showing either that the alleged persecutors are aligned with the government or that the government is unwilling or unable to control them.’” Khalili, 557 F.3d at 436 (quoting Raza v. Gonzales, 484 F.3d 125, 129 (1st Cir. 2007)). The State Department’s 2005 Country Report portrays the Guatemalan police as “understaffed, poorly trained, and severely underfunded.” A.R. 221; J.A. 185. The Report also describes “[c]orruption and substantial inadequacies in the police and judicial sectors, widespread societal violence, and impunity for criminal activity . . . .” A.R. 218; J.A. 181. Moreover, “the majority of serious crimes were not investigated or punished” and “less than 3 percent of reported crimes were prosecuted, and significantly fewer received convictions.” A.R. 222; J.A. 186. 09-3830 Ralios Morente v. Holder Page 13 The conditions in Guatemala are far from ideal. Nonetheless, the Reports do not directly indicate that the government would be unable or unwilling to control the former guerilla members Ralios Morente fears. In fact, the 2005 Report states that the government regularly provided security for human rights activists who received threats, so some precedent for the protection of threat recipients exists. A.R. 225; J.A. 189. Further, with one exception,4 there is no evidence that Ralios Morente or his family ever reported the threats they received to the Guatemalan police, let alone that the police failed or refused to investigate. See Anyakudo v. Holder, 375 F. App’x 559, 564 (6th Cir. 2010) (claim that government was unwilling or unable to protect petitioner deemed speculative and unsubstantiated where petitioner failed to report threats to authorities). Also absent from the record is any indication that the Guatemalan government or police are aligned with or sympathetic to former guerillas such that they would decline to act against them. See Khalili, 557 F.3d at 436. For these reasons, the evidence falls short of compelling a finding that the Guatemalan government would be unwilling or unable to protect Ralios Morente from persecution by former guerillas. For the above reasons, we conclude that substantial evidence supports the BIA’s finding that Ralios Morente did not demonstrate a well-founded fear of future persecution by former guerilla members.