Court Opinion

ID: 9947804
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-05 18:01:33.915941+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:28:35.487346
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        MAR 5 2024
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

REYNA ESMERALDA SANCHEZ-                        No. 22-1685
ARGUETA,                                        Agency No.
                                                A212-998-137
             Petitioner,

 v.                                             MEMORANDUM*

MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,

             Respondent.

                     On Petition for Review of an Order of the
                         Board of Immigration Appeals

                    Argued and Submitted November 13, 2023
                              Seattle, Washington

Before: McKEOWN and GOULD, Circuit Judges, and BAKER, Judge.**

      Reyna Sanchez-Argueta, a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions for

review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) affirmance of an

Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) decision denying her applications for asylum,

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      **
             The Honorable M. Miller Baker, Judge for the United States Court of
International Trade, sitting by designation.
withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture

(“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We grant in part and deny

in part the petition, and remand Sanchez-Argueta’s applications for asylum and

withholding of removal to the BIA.

      We review the BIA’s “legal conclusions de novo” and “review for

substantial evidence factual findings underlying the BIA’s determination that a

petitioner is not eligible for asylum, withholding of removal, or CAT relief.”

Plancarte Sauceda v. Garland, 23 F.4th 824, 831 (9th Cir. 2022) (citing Davila v.

Barr, 968 F.3d 1136, 1141 (9th Cir. 2020)).

      The BIA’s analysis of Sanchez-Argueta’s asylum and withholding of

removal claims was legally flawed. “To establish asylum eligibility, an applicant

must show that he is unable or unwilling to return to his country of nationality

‘because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of’” a

protected ground. Madrigal v. Holder, 716 F.3d 499, 503 (9th Cir. 2013) (quoting

8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A)). An applicant alleging persecution by nonstate actors

has the burden of establishing that “the government was unable or unwilling to

control” her persecutors. Id. (quoting Baghdasaryan v. Holder, 592 F.3d 1018,

1023 (9th Cir. 2010)). In analyzing the unable-or-unwilling requirement, the BIA

must consider both the government’s “willingness to control” the persecutors and

“its ability to do so,” the latter of which requires the BIA to “examine the efficacy”

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of the government’s protective efforts. Id. at 506; see also Bringas-Rodriguez v.

Sessions, 850 F.3d 1051, 1072 (9th Cir. 2017) (en banc) (emphasizing, in

evaluating the unable-or-unwilling requirement, the need to consider “actual

country conditions” and the de facto reality of a government’s protective efforts).

      In concluding that the Salvadoran government is willing and able to protect

Sanchez-Argueta, the BIA analyzed only its efforts to bring her perpetrators to

justice. It did not, however, analyze the Salvadoran government’s ability to protect

her, i.e., the efficacy of those efforts. We therefore grant Sanchez-Argueta’s

petition in part and remand to the BIA with respect to her applications for asylum

and withholding of removal for the BIA “to consider in the first instance whether

the” Salvadoran government “is able to control” Sanchez-Argueta’s persecutors.

Madrigal, 716 F.3d at 507.

      Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s determination that Sanchez-Argueta

failed to establish eligibility for CAT relief. “An applicant is eligible for CAT

relief if he establishes that it is more likely than not that he or she would be

tortured”—meaning subjected to “severe pain or suffering . . . inflicted by or at the

instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other

person acting in an official capacity”—“if removed to the proposed country of

removal.” Id. at 508 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting 8 C.F.R.

§§ 208.16(c)(2), 208.18(a)(1)). “Thus, a CAT applicant must show . . . that a

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public official would inflict, instigate, consent to or acquiesce in [the] torture.” Id.

(internal citation omitted) (first citing Cole v. Holder, 659 F.3d 762, 770 (9th Cir.

2011); then citing 8 C.F.R. § 208.18(a)(1)). “Acquiescence” requires prior

awareness of the torture and breach of a legal responsibility to intervene. Ornelas-

Chavez v. Gonzales, 458 F.3d 1052, 1059 (9th Cir. 2006) (citing 8 C.F.R.

§ 208.18(a)(7)).

      In concluding that she failed to prove consent or acquiescence, the BIA

considered the entirety of the record, including the Salvadoran government’s

efforts to investigate Sanchez-Argueta’s attackers and country conditions evidence.

See Madrigal, 716 F.3d at 508–09 (BIA must consider all evidence relevant to a

CAT claim, including country conditions evidence). And unlike for her asylum

and withholding of removal claims, the BIA weighed evidence relating to “the

efficacy of the government’s efforts” to protect Sanchez-Argueta, including the

alleged ineffectiveness of Salvadoran authorities’ efforts to respond to violence

against women and girls. Id. at 509; see Andrade-Garcia v. Lynch, 828 F.3d 829,

836 (9th Cir. 2016) (“[A] general ineffectiveness on the government’s part to

investigate and prevent crime will not suffice to show acquiescence.”). The BIA

also reasonably focused its analysis on Sanchez-Argueta’s interactions with law

enforcement in the aftermath of her attack, as the record nowhere showed that the

Salvadoran government was aware that she received subsequent death threats. Nor

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was there any direct evidence that Salvadoran authorities had prior awareness of or

played a role in her attack. And no concrete evidence showed that law

enforcement contributed to the subsequent death threats against her; rather,

evidence suggested that Sanchez-Argueta herself told gang members that she

intended to cooperate with police. On this record, a “reasonable adjudicator”

would not be “compelled to conclude” that the Salvadoran government consented

to or acquiesced in Sanchez-Argueta’s torture. Nasrallah v. Barr, 140 S. Ct. 1683,

1692 (2020). We therefore deny Sanchez-Argueta’s petition in part with respect to

her CAT claim.

     PETITION GRANTED AND REMANDED IN PART, AND DENIED
IN PART. Sanchez-Argueta shall be awarded costs on appeal.

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