Court Opinion

ID: 9410712
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-24 05:01:24.719217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:59.820928
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                For the Seventh Circuit
                   ____________________
No. 22-2909
MELVIN JAVIER OSORIO-MORALES,
                                                       Petitioner,
                                v.

MERRICK B. GARLAND,
Attorney General of the United States,
                                                      Respondent.
                   ____________________

                   Petition for Review of an Order
               of the Board of Immigration Appeals.
                          No. A206-796-531
                   ____________________

       ARGUED APRIL 11, 2023 — DECIDED JULY 5, 2023
                ____________________

   Before SCUDDER, ST. EVE, and LEE, Circuit Judges.
    ST. EVE, Circuit Judge. In 2014, Petitioner Melvin Osorio-
Morales ﬂed his home in Honduras for the United States, fear-
ing that he would be the next victim in a decades-long, mur-
derous feud between his family and the Hernandez family.
When the United States found that Melvin was here illegally
in 2015, it initiated removal proceedings. Based on the threat
to his life from the feud, he sought asylum relief, withholding
2                                                         No. 22-2909

of removal, and protection under the Convention Against
Torture. But because the feud was not sanctioned by the Hon-
duran government, the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denied his
requests for relief and the Board of Immigration Appeals
(“BIA”) aﬃrmed. Osorio-Morales now appeals.
                           I. Background
A. Facts
    Sometime in 1996, Melvin Osorio-Morales’s family mem-
ber, Jeremias Osorio Morales, was dating a woman named
Marisena Argueta. Argueta was also dating a member of the
Hernandez family, Giovani Hernandez Maldonado. The two
men ended up in a shootout over Argueta and Jeremias was
killed. Angered by Jeremias’s death, the Osorio family killed
Giovani’s relative, Robert Hernandez.
    At the end of that year, the Hernandez family responded,
setting ﬁre to the Osorio family home. The ﬁre burned Mel-
vin’s grandmother alive. His father escaped by hiding under
a car outside while the house burned. Two uncles, who had
been in the house, escaped with signiﬁcant burn injuries. Ac-
cording to one uncle, although a criminal case was brought
after the ﬁre, the accused members of the Hernandez family
were subsequently released. 1 So began a decades-long,
bloody feud between the Osorio and Hernandez families.
Melvin was born under the shadow of this violence just one
year later.

    1Nothing in the record indicates who initiated this investigation or
prosecution. In fact, Melvin speciﬁcally stated that he does not know if
any of his relatives ever ﬁled police reports about the violence from the
Hernandez family, including this ﬁre.
No. 22-2909                                                              3

    While Melvin himself has never had a violent interaction
with the Hernandez family, the conﬂict continued throughout
his life, always requiring him to “watch [his] back.” At his
hearing, Melvin described more than ﬁfteen years of hostility
that took a massive toll on his family: his cousin Luis was left
paralyzed, Luis’s father and two of Melvin’s uncles were
killed, two of Melvin’s cousins committed suicide out of fear
of what the Hernandez family would do to them, and another
cousin was stabbed to death. 2
    Although he contends that “everybody knew who” was
responsible for these murders, Melvin does not believe that
anyone in his family ever ﬁled a police report about the vio-
lence. Fearing that he would be next, Melvin came to the
United States in 2014. He left behind “a lot of family” in Hon-
duras; he believes that they “live in a state of chaos” because
of the feud and always need to carry weapons for protection.
B. Procedural History
   On June 10, 2019, Melvin had a hearing before the IJ,
where he testiﬁed to the above facts as part of his applications
for asylum and withholding of removal. 3 Although the IJ
found him credible, he nevertheless denied Melvin’s petition
on two separate grounds: (1) Melvin could not show a likeli-
hood of persecution and (2) he could not show that the

    2 Melvin also noted that one of his uncles was killed in an altercation
with police in 2014. He does not allege, however, that this killing was re-
lated to the feud.
    3 Melvin also applied for relief under the Convention Against Torture,

which the IJ denied. Because he does not appeal this decision, we do not
discuss it here.
4                                                   No. 22-2909

Honduran government was unwilling or unable to protect
him from the interfamily violence.
    The IJ concluded that Melvin could not show a well-
founded fear of persecution, as required for both asylum and
withholding of removal. The IJ conducted this analysis in
three parts, asking whether Melvin had been subject to past
persecution; whether he had an objectively reasonable fear of
future persecution; and whether there was a pervasive pattern
or practice of persecution against Melvin’s family in Hondu-
ras that would otherwise make persecution reasonably likely.
First, because Melvin himself was never threatened or at-
tacked, the IJ determined that his treatment simply was not
severe enough to establish past persecution. Relying on this
Court’s opinion in N.L.A. v. Holder, 744 F.3d 425 (7th Cir.
2014), the IJ further held that it could not “consider [Melvin’s]
family’s past harm as part of his harm because it was not di-
rected at him.” Because Melvin had not established past per-
secution, the IJ turned to the question of future persecution.
Although the IJ found that Melvin’s subjective fear of perse-
cution at the hands of the Hernandez family was reasonable,
he found no objectively reasonable possibility of persecution
for Melvin in Honduras. The IJ noted that Melvin himself was
able to live in Honduras until the age of sixteen—in the same
town where most of the violence occurred—without ever per-
sonally being threatened or attacked. He also pointed out that
Melvin’s Osorio relatives still live there and have not been
harmed by the Hernandez family since 2010. Accordingly, the
IJ decided that there was no well-founded fear of future per-
secution. Nor did the IJ believe there was a clear pattern or
practice of persecution against members of the Osorio family.
Because Melvin’s family members had lived in relative safety
since 2010, the IJ held that the violence was not “extreme”
No. 22-2909                                                     5

enough to meet this Circuit’s standard for a “pattern or prac-
tice” of persecution.
    Finally, persecution analysis aside, the IJ held that Melvin
had failed to show that the Honduran government was una-
ble or unwilling to protect him and his family from this vio-
lence. The IJ pointed to the police involvement and subse-
quent prosecution of two members of the Hernandez family
after the ﬁre that killed Melvin’s grandmother as evidence
that the Honduran government would be willing to take some
action to protect the Osorio family. Taken with the fact that
the Osorio family did not report any of the other violence to
the police, the IJ held that Melvin had not shown a lack of
government willingness to help. The IJ explained: “While the
Honduran government may struggle with policing crime and
violence, this factor in and of itself cannot establish that the
government is unable or unwilling to protect the [Osorio fam-
ily].”
    Melvin subsequently appealed to the BIA, which aﬃrmed
the IJ’s decision. It began by noting that the IJ’s holding that
the Honduran government was not “unable or unwilling” to
protect Melvin from the violence of the Hernandez family
was, alone, a suﬃcient reason to deny the asylum application.
The BIA went on to aﬃrm the IJ’s holding that Melvin’s expe-
riences in Honduras did not amount to past persecution or a
reasonable fear of future persecution. This appeal followed.
                          II. Analysis
     Because the BIA adopted the view of the IJ and aﬃrmed
with additional analysis, we review both opinions, aﬃrming
if they are supported by substantial evidence. Minghai Tian v.
Holder, 745 F.3d 822, 826 (7th Cir. 2014). This is not a high bar.
6                                                            No. 22-2909

Indeed, “we may reverse the IJ’s determinations only if we
determine that the evidence compels a diﬀerent result.” Rama
v. Holder, 607 F.3d 461, 465 (7th Cir. 2010) (emphasis added).
A. Asylum Standards
    “To receive asylum, [the applicant] bears the burden of
proving that he is a ‘refugee’ within the meaning of the Immi-
gration and Nationality Act (‘INA’).” Vahora v. Holder, 707
F.3d 904, 907 (7th Cir. 2013). This means that an applicant
“must ‘demonstrate that []he is unable or unwilling to return
to the country of h[is] nationality because of persecution or a
well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion,
nationality, membership in a particular social group, or polit-
ical opinion.’” Dai v. Garland, 24 F.4th 628, 634 (7th Cir. 2022)
(cleaned up). But “‘persecution’ under the INA does not en-
compass purely private actions. … Rather, to receive protec-
tion under the statute, the persecution must be inﬂicted by the
government, or by private actors whom the government is un-
able or unwilling to control.” 4 Vahora, 707 F.3d at 908 (quoting
Jonaitiene v. Holder, 660 F.3d 267, 270 (7th Cir. 2011) and Esco-
bar v. Holder, 657 F.3d 537, 543 (7th Cir. 2011)).

    4 Melvin challenges the IJ’s and BIA’s conclusions on both his asylum
claim and his withholding of removal claim. But the requirements to prove
a right to either asylum or withholding of removal are similar. In compar-
ing the two standards, we have repeatedly explained that the diﬀerence is
an applicant’s burden of proof. An “asylum claim[ant] ha[s] the lowest
burden of proof, so [the] failure to establish eligibility for asylum neces-
sarily means that [the applicant] cannot prevail on [a] withholding of re-
moval … claim[].” N.Y.C.C. v. Barr, 930 F.3d 884, 890 (7th Cir. 2019). Be-
cause Melvin’s asylum claim is dispositive as to his withholding of re-
moval claim, we analyze only the asylum claim here.
No. 22-2909                                                                 7

   Here, Melvin claims persecution by private actors—the
Hernandez family. Accordingly, he bears the burden of show-
ing that the Honduran government is unable or unwilling to
protect him from the threat that the Hernandez family poses.
The IJ concluded, and the BIA aﬃrmed, that the Honduran
government is not “unable or unwilling” to control the threat
from the Hernandez family. 5 Because that decision is sup-
ported by substantial evidence, we now aﬃrm.
B. “Unable or Unwilling” Standard
    We have upheld rulings that a government is not “unable
or unwilling” to protect victims from persecution where the
record reﬂects that the government has taken some steps
(even imperfect ones) toward protecting victims. In Bitsin v.
Holder, for example, we considered persecution claims from
Bitsin, a man who feared retribution in Bulgaria by two men
against whom his father had testiﬁed in a criminal trial.
Bitsin’s father had received threats because of his testimony
and was placed in protective custody; two other trial wit-
nesses were physically harmed; and the son of a reporter who
investigated the two men on trial had been attacked. 719 F.3d
619, 629 (7th Cir. 2013). Nevertheless, we refused to disturb

    5  Melvin argues that “[t]he [IJ] only decided the [question of the Hon-
duran government’s willingness or ability to protect] as to future persecu-
tion,” and not as to Melvin’s past persecution argument. But a review of
the IJ’s opinion belies this argument. In fact, all evidence referenced by the
IJ on the issue of government protection—a police investigation into
Osorio-Morales’s grandmother’s death, the resulting arrests, and Osorio-
Morales’s family’s own failure to report the subsequent violence—oc-
curred contemporaneously with the alleged past persecution. Accord-
ingly, we read the IJ’s conclusion as applying to both past and future per-
secution.
8                                                   No. 22-2909

the BIA’s denial of asylum, concluding that the government
was neither unable nor unwilling to protect Bitsin from pri-
vate threats. In particular, we found relevant that Bitsin him-
self had not been threatened, the Bulgarian government had
taken reasonable steps to investigate and punish those re-
sponsible for the threats, and the government had oﬀered wit-
ness protection services to Bitsin’s father. Id. at 630. See also
Chetri v. Lynch, 633 F. App'x 336, 340 (7th Cir. 2015) (govern-
ment is not “unable or unwilling” to protect victims if, “when
prodded, the police do take action”).
    We have also found it reasonable—even in cases of ex-
treme violence—to expect asylum seekers to have sought help
from the authorities before concluding that their country is
“unable or unwilling” to protect them. In Vahora v. Holder, we
heard the case of a Muslim man who claimed that two Hindu
leaders in India had murdered his friends and attempted to
murder him as well, telling them all that India “was meant for
Hindus and not for Muslims.” 707 F.3d at 906. One of the as-
sailants threatened him with a gun to keep him quiet about
the attempted murder. Id. at 906–07. Despite two moves
within India, the two assailants repeatedly found him and as-
saulted him. Id. at 907. The BIA, considering Vahora’s case,
held that the Indian government was not “unable or unwill-
ing” to protect him from these two assailants. It relied on a
State Department report reﬂecting eﬀorts by the Indian gov-
ernment to punish perpetrators of religious violence and the
fact that Vahora did not seek help from the police after any of
his alleged attacks. Id. at 909. Based on this evidence, we de-
cided that the BIA’s conclusion that the Indian government
was willing and able to protect Vahora from any potential re-
ligious persecution was supported by substantial evidence.
No. 22-2909                                                     9

   Finally, we often require evidence of systemic, rather than
individual, failures to prove that a government is “unwilling
or unable” to protect its people. “Although police apathy can
indicate a government’s unwillingness or inability to protect
an applicant,” a one-oﬀ conversation with an unhelpful of-
ﬁcer does not necessarily show that a government is “unable
or unwilling” to protect a victim. Id. at 910. Similarly, a gov-
ernment’s decision not to prosecute, without more infor-
mation about why that decision was made, does not itself
show an “unwillingness or inability to protect.” See Jonaitiene,
660 F.3d at 271.
C. Willingness of the Honduran Government
    Melvin believes the Honduran Government is “unable or
unwilling” to protect him from the Hernandez family. He ﬁrst
points to the investigation into the ﬁre that killed his grand-
mother, arguing that the release of the suspects in that case
shows an unwillingness or inability to help his family. But
that is not how the IJ saw it—the IJ noted that, “[t]hough the
outcome was not favorable to [Melvin’s] family, the govern-
ment took some action in investigating the case,” which sug-
gested that Honduras was willing to protect his family from
the Hernandezes. Melvin insists that this was the “wrong in-
ference.” The question is not whether the inference was
“wrong,” however, but rather whether the evidence compels a
diﬀerent result. That simply is not the case here. It was rea-
sonable for the IJ to infer that an investigation into private vi-
olence suggests willingness by the Honduran government to
protect its citizens from such violence. See Bitsin, 719 F.3d at
629; Chetri, 633 F. App’x at 340. And as in Jonaitiene, there is
no evidence explaining why the Hernandez family members
who allegedly killed Melvin’s grandmother were released. If
10                                                   No. 22-2909

we do not even know whether the government “was pre-
sented with suﬃcient evidence” to convict the Hernandez de-
fendants, “but chose not to do so,” Jonaitiene, 660 F.3d at 271,
then the evidence does not compel the reversal of the IJ’s ﬁnd-
ing that the government was not “unable or unwilling” to
protect the Osorios.
   Melvin also testiﬁed that “[t]he police know about [the
Hernandez family], and they know about their involvement,”
“but no one is willing to do anything about it.” But as the IJ
noted, there is no evidence that anyone in Melvin’s family re-
ported any of the violence to the police, so there is no way to
know how the police would have reacted or whether the gov-
ernment would have helped. See Vahora, 707 F.3d at 909. This
means Melvin has failed to carry his burden.
   We do not intend to downplay the gravity of Melvin’s sit-
uation. He has spent his entire life under the threat of a violent
dispute that he neither started nor encouraged. But no matter
how sympathetic his case, our law does not permit us to grant
asylum where an IJ has reasonably found that a foreign gov-
ernment is willing and able to help the asylum-seeker. Be-
cause Melvin failed to show that the Honduran government
was “unable or unwilling” to protect him, his claims must fail.
His petition for review is therefore
                                                         DENIED.