Opinion ID: 6349253
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Majority’s Discretion Trumps Proper

Text: Deference The majority identifies three bases for its conclusion that Molina’s past experiences amount to persecution: (1) he was forced to flee; (2) he received death threats; and (3) cumulatively, the effect of those incidents amount to persecution. With respect to the first two bases, as is often true, we have caselaw pointing in both directions, making the majority’s conclusion possible but not compelled since there are also circuit precedents evincing that threats combined with a minor assault are not enough to compel a finding of persecution. As to the third basis of the majority’s decision, the agency explicitly conducted a cumulative 5 Sharma v. Garland, 9 F.4th 1052, 1061 (9th Cir. 2021) (“Determining whether the facts compel a conclusion of past persecution is ultimately a fact-bound endeavor that is not reducible to a set formula. . . . Under our cases, [relevant facts] must be evaluated in combination with each other to form a sufficiently negative portrait of the petitioner’s experience in his or her own country that not only allows a finding of past persecution but requires it.”). FLORES MOLINA V. GARLAND 49 review of the evidence, which requires our deference even if the majority disagrees with the result of that cumulative analysis.
As the majority correctly notes, our court has recognized that under certain circumstances “being forced to flee from one’s home in the face of an immediate threat of severe physical violence or death” can constitute persecution. Mendoza-Pablo v. Holder, 667 F.3d 1308, 1314 (9th Cir. 2012). But the circumstances in which our court has found that fleeing evidenced persecution were much more severe than those faced by Molina. For example, in MendozaPablo, the petitioner’s village was burned to the ground and its inhabitants massacred, including his immediate family members who were locked in their homes and burned alive—forcing his mother to flee to the mountains with him while eight-months pregnant. Id. at 1311–13. And in Knezevic, our court emphasized the “ethnic cleansing” that forced petitioner to flee after his home and business were destroyed while his hometown was shelled and bombarded by hostile forces. Knezevic v. Ashcroft, 367 F.3d 1206, 1208–12 (9th Cir. 2004). Mendoza-Pablo and Knezevic do not stand for the proposition that fleeing always, or even usually, constitutes persecution, and those cases cannot be read isolated from their extreme facts, which differ markedly from Molina’s decision to relocate. Molina chose to relocate after a threat was spray painted on his house, and later after paramilitary members came looking for him. But our precedent sets a higher bar for persecution, including in the cases cited by the majority on fleeing one’s home. The petitioners in Mendoza-Pablo and Knezevic fled their homes, because, unlike Molina, their homes were completely destroyed. At the end of the day, 50 FLORES MOLINA V. GARLAND fleeing is one of many factors the agency considered, and viewed in light of the record as a whole, one reasonable conclusion (which the agency drew) is that Molina did not suffer persecution even though he relocated after receiving threats. The cases cited by the majority do not compel otherwise.
Just as with being forced to flee, our court has also recognized that death threats can constitute persecution in a “small category of cases,” but only “where threats are repeated, specific and combined with confrontation or other mistreatment.” Duran-Rodriguez, 918 F.3d at 1028 (citation and quotation marks omitted) (determining that receiving death threats from armed men and fleeing to another town was not sufficient to compel a conclusion of past persecution); Lim v. INS, 224 F.3d 929, 936 (9th Cir. 2000) (holding that threats standing alone rarely constitute past persecution and “only when the threats are so menacing as to cause significant actual ‘suffering or harm’”) (citations omitted). Here, the record could be weighed, as the agency did, to find that Molina’s threats fall outside the small category of cases where threats constitute persecution, because the threats were not repeated, specific, or severe enough. Other than one instance, Molina’s threats were mostly indirect and detached from physical harm. 6 6 While Molina was identified along with other protestors in social media posts as a violence instigator, called despicable things like a “rabid dog,” and told that “Chipote awaits,” those posts did not contain an explicit death threat and were not sent to him directly. Molina did receive a direct threat when “Bullets to the strikers (protesters)” was FLORES MOLINA V. GARLAND 51 It is true that our court has pushed the boundary further and further away from the core of “extreme” harm and suffering. But even under our expansive caselaw, the severity and frequency of Molina’s past harm does not compel a conclusion different than the agency’s. See, e.g., Mashiri v. Ashcroft, 383 F.3d 1112, 1119–20 (9th Cir. 2004) (petitioner and his family were plagued with death threats and physical assaults for months, accompanied by slashed tires and a ransacked home); Ruano v. Ashcroft, 301 F.3d 1155, 1160–61 (9th Cir. 2002) (petitioner received dozens of death threats over the course of six years, was chased by armed men on multiple occasions, and frequently followed to his home and work); Navas v. INS, 217 F.3d 646, 658 (9th Cir. 2000) (petitioner was threatened with death after two members of his family were murdered, shot at by the same perpetrators, and his mother beaten); Smolniakova v. Gonzales, 422 F.3d 1037, 1041–42 (9th Cir. 2005) (petitioner was attacked and almost strangled to death by assailants who called her a “Jewish Bitch,” had her wrist slashed, and received multiple death threats and anti-Semitic harassment that the police refused to stop, including profanities and human feces smeared on her apartment, fires set in her mailbox, and repeated slashings of her front door). So even under our oft-wayward precedents, whether Molina’s threats and singular assault amount to persecution may be a close call, but it is not compelled by the record or our caselaw. The majority distinguishes the cases relied on by the BIA, claiming they are “not on-point” with the harm Molina suffered. But the petitioner in Lim (though he was not spray painted on his house. But—and without minimizing the gravity of the spray-painted threat—it only occurred once and was not accompanied by any physical harm. 52 FLORES MOLINA V. GARLAND physically attacked) had colleagues murdered by the dissident political group he infiltrated undercover, appeared on their death list, and suffered two years of death threats that prompted him to hire a personal bodyguard—a much longer period of harm and much more direct threats than Molina experienced. Lim, 224 F.3d at 932–35. Similarly, the petitioner in Gu (though he did not receive an explicit death threat) suffered more severe physical harm than Molina’s lost tooth and bruised lip—he was struck ten times with a rod when he was detained by the police. Gu v. Gonzales, 454 F.3d 1014, 1020 (9th Cir. 2006). Yet our court agreed that a finding of persecution was not compelled in either case. Just as with the precedents relied on by the majority, Lim and Gu are no doubt distinguishable in some ways, but they illustrate how our court has affirmed findings of no persecution despite more severe harm or threats than Molina encountered, just as the BIA did here. Again, none of the cases the majority cites compel a finding of persecution, and Lim and Gu are more than enough to support the BIA’s conclusion.
Finally, the majority argues that even if none of Molina’s past incidents rise to the level of persecution, a finding of persecution should be compelled given the “cumulative effect” and “escalating fashion” of his harms. Overturning an agency decision based on “cumulative effect” reasoning is always particularly undeferential, because whether or not disparate and independently insufficient harms cobbled together somehow suffice to meet an already ambiguous standard is really nothing more than the application of a “we know it when we see it” standard—reminiscent of Justice Stewart’s infamous search for the bounds of obscenity. See Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964) (Stewart, J., FLORES MOLINA V. GARLAND 53 concurring). The only circumstance in which I could imagine a court remanding an immigration case on “cumulative effect” without abandoning its deferential role would be if the agency obviously and completely failed to consider cumulative effects altogether. But here, the agency explicitly recounted and “cumulatively considered” Molina’s past harms. And while the escalating nature of his harms could support a finding of persecution, I do not see how it compels a finding of persecution—and the majority cites no case to show otherwise. The most factually similar precedent to this case is Hoxha v. Ashcroft, which was cited by the BIA in support of its determination that Molina’s past harm, even cumulatively considered, did not constitute past persecution. 319 F.3d 1179 (9th Cir. 2003). Hoxha, an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, received multiple threats since his early childhood “that he would be harmed or killed if he chose to stay [in Kosovo],” and he was beaten on one occasion when a group of Serbs overheard he and a friend speaking Albanian. Hoxha, 319 F.3d at 1180–81. Hoxha suffered two broken ribs and extensive facial bruises from the beating. Id. at 1181. This court acknowledged that “[a]lthough Hoxha’s experiences are disturbing and regrettable, they do not evince actions so severe as to compel a finding of past persecution,” and concluded that substantial evidence supported the BIA’s finding of no past persecution. Id. at 1182. While there are some immaterial factual differences between Hoxha and this case (as no two immigration cases are the same), it is instructive here that evidence of multiple 54 FLORES MOLINA V. GARLAND threats, together with a severe beating, did not compel a conclusion that past persecution occurred in Hoxha. 7 The majority’s contention that the agency did not conduct a cumulative analysis is, at bottom, a disagreement with the result of the agency’s cumulative consideration of Molina’s past harms. Could the agency have concluded that Molina’s past harm cumulatively amounted to persecution? Sure. And the majority does an excellent job of outlining how our precedent could justify such a conclusion. But neither the record, nor even our precedent, compels a finding of past persecution. The majority places a heavy emphasis on the escalating nature of Molina’s harassment. But the reality, which after Dai we must account for, is that the agency presumably placed less weight on that consideration, and in reviewing the agency’s decision we must consider the range of permissible weight-allocations to see if any reasonable adjudicator could find as the agency did. As the majority recognizes, determining whether the facts compel a conclusion of past persecution is ultimately “a fact-bound endeavor that is not reducible to a set formula.” Because 7 One difference between Hoxha and the present case is that in Hoxha an active summons had been issued for the petitioner to report to the Serbian government and the country conditions evidence indicated “grisly documentation of numerous atrocities committed against ethnic Albanians” like Hoxha, that were not improving. Hoxha, 319 F.3d at 1181–84. Those facts led the court to conclude that Hoxha had a wellfounded fear of future persecution. See id. Here, no summons has been issued for Molina and the record is devoid of any other evidence indicating that the government or government-aligned groups have an active, ongoing interest in harming him. In the present case, the country conditions evidence before the agency indicated that conditions for political protestors in Nicaragua were improving. FLORES MOLINA V. GARLAND 55 here the formula used by the agency in weighing the evidence finds support in the record, I must defer to it.