Court Opinion

ID: 9390842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-28 19:00:22.060292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:37.505593
License: Public Domain

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

                        UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                             FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
                                 _______________

                                      No. 22-2398
                                    _______________

                                   LUIS CRUZ-DIAZ,
                                                            Petitioner
                                             v.

               ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
                            _______________

                      On Petition for Review of a Final Order of the
                             Board of Immigration Appeals
                               (Agency No. A088-137-256)
                          Immigration Judge: Annie S. Garcy
                                    _______________

                      Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
                                  on April 28, 2023

                Before: JORDAN, KRAUSE, and BIBAS, Circuit Judges

                                  (Filed: April 28, 2023)
                                    _______________

                                       OPINION *
                                    _______________
BIBAS, Circuit Judge.

    Luis Cruz-Diaz is a native and citizen of Mexico. There, in 2007, two gang members

claiming to be police officers tried to kidnap him from a restaurant. For the next week or

two, men called his mother, demanding money and threatening to kill her and Cruz-Diaz’s

whole family. To avoid the danger, he entered the United States illegally.

*
   This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and, under I.O.P. 5.7, is not binding
precedent.
   In 2017, the federal government charged Cruz-Diaz as removable. He conceded remov-

ability but sought withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against

Torture. An immigration judge denied his requests and ordered him removed, and the Board

of Immigration Appeals dismissed his appeal. He now petitions for review, but we will

deny it.

   We review the Board’s decision as well as only those parts of the judge’s decision on

which the Board relied. Camara v. Att’y Gen., 580 F.3d 196, 201 (3d Cir. 2009). We review

factual findings for substantial evidence, deferring to them unless no reasonable judge

could have made such a finding. Id.; S.E.R.L. v. Att’y Gen., 894 F.3d 535, 543 (3d Cir. 2018).

   In seeking withholding, Cruz-Diaz claimed that he feared persecution as a member of

a “particular social group”: “Mexican elites or successful business owners who are re-

moved from the United States to Mexico.” 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A); AR 33. The Board,

following the judge, rejected that group as not particular enough because its boundaries are

too fuzzy. That holding was proper. In re A-M-E- & J-G-U-, 24 I. & N. Dec. 69, 76 (BIA

2007) (reasoning that terms like wealth and affluence are not particular enough), quoted in

Valdiviezo-Galdamez v. Att’y Gen., 663 F.3d 582, 600 (3d Cir. 2011).

   Cruz-Diaz stresses that his Mexican-gang expert testified that Mexican society recog-

nizes returning deportees as a group. But that testimony shows only that deportees are so-

cially distinct; it does nothing to make the boundaries of Cruz-Diaz’s proposed group clear.

   Because Cruz-Diaz’s proposed group lacks particularity, his withholding claim fails. So

the Board did not have to address past persecution or his failure to bring in a witness to

corroborate the restaurant incident.

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   His Convention claim likewise fails. The immigration judge found that, though Cruz-

Diaz’s mother never paid the extortioners, she was never harmed, nor was he. So, the judge

reasoned, he was not likely to be tortured. The Board properly upheld that finding. Cruz-

Diaz insists that the judge should instead have heeded his expert on Mexican gangs. But as

the judge found, that generalized testimony was not enough to show that Cruz-Diaz himself

would more likely than not be targeted and tortured. Because the agency’s denial of with-

holding and Convention relief rested on substantial evidence, we will deny the petition.

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