Court Opinion

ID: 9908726
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-11 18:00:56.175636+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:49:29.399028
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                       DEC 11 2023
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

CARLA PATRICIA AREVALO-RAMOS,                   No. 22-202
                                                Agency No.
             Petitioner,                        A206-629-049
 v.
                                                MEMORANDUM*
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,

             Respondent.

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

                           Submitted December 6, 2023**
                                Portland, Oregon

Before: BERZON, NGUYEN, and MILLER, Circuit Judges.

      Carla Patricia Arevalo-Ramos (“Arevalo-Ramos”), a native citizen of

Honduras, petitions for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals

(“BIA”) dismissing her appeal of the immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of asylum

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      **
             The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
and withholding of removal. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252.

Reviewing the agency’s factual findings for substantial evidence and its legal

conclusions de novo, see Flores Molina v. Garland, 37 F.4th 626, 632 (9th Cir.

2022), we deny the petition for review.

       The IJ denied asylum and withholding of removal relief because of the

possibility of relocation within Honduras, among other reasons. The BIA decision

dismissing Arevalo-Ramos’ appeal of the IJ’s denial of asylum and withholding of

removal rested exclusively on the possibility of relocation, concluding that she

“did not establish that she faces a risk of persecution countrywide.” But Arevalo-

Ramos did not provide any arguments in her opening brief before this court

regarding relocation. In particular, she did not argue that she had established past

persecution, such that the BIA should have placed the burden of establishing that

internal relocation was possible or reasonable on the government. See Kaur v.

Wilkinson, 986 F.3d 1216, 1231 (9th Cir. 2021).1 Because “[i]ssues raised in a brief

that are not supported by argument are deemed abandoned,” Martinez-Serrano v.

I.N.S., 94 F.3d 1256, 1259 (9th Cir. 1996), Arevalo-Ramos has abandoned a

challenge to the BIA decision’s sole basis for dismissing her appeal of the IJ’s

denial of relief.

1
 Arevalo-Ramos’s brief appears to recognize that she did not establish past
persecution.

                                          2
PETITION DENIED.

                   3