Court Opinion

ID: 9946648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-29 23:00:45.105064+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:20.493099
License: Public Domain

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
                                File Name: 24a0089n.06

                                           No. 23-3733

                            UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                 FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
                                                                                      FILED
                                                                                    Feb 29, 2024
ADA BELL BAQUEDANO-AMADOR;                             )                    KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk
EMERSON    OSMANY    COLINDRES-                        )
BAQUEDANO;    ALINSON    ANALY                         )
COLINDRES-BAQUEDANO,                                   )    ON PETITION FOR REVIEW
                                                       )    FROM THE UNITED STATES
       Petitioners,
                                                       )    BOARD   OF  IMMIGRATION
                                                       )    APPEALS
v.
                                                       )
                                                       )                                OPINION
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General,
                                                       )
       Respondent.                                     )

Before: BOGGS, McKEAGUE, and LARSEN, Circuit Judges.

       PER CURIAM. Ada Bell Baquedano-Amador and her two minor children, Emerson

Osmany Colindres-Baquedano and Alinson Analy Colindres-Baquedano, petition this court for

review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing their appeal from the

denial of their application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the

Convention Against Torture (CAT). As set forth below, we DENY the petition for review.

       The petitioners, natives and citizens of Honduras, entered the United States in June 2014.

Following their arrest by Border Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security served the

petitioners with notices to appear in removal proceedings, charging them with removability as

noncitizens present in the United States without being admitted or paroled.         See 8 U.S.C.

§ 1182(a)(6)(A)(i). The petitioners, through counsel, admitted the factual allegations set forth in

the notices to appear and conceded removability as charged; an immigration judge (IJ) sustained

the charges against them.
No. 23-3733, Baquedano-Amador v. Garland

       Baquedano-Amador applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection,

including her minor children as derivative beneficiaries of her application. At the hearing on her

application, Baquedano-Amador sought relief based on her membership in two particular social

groups: (1) Honduran women and (2) Honduran women abandoned by their husbands.

       Baquedano-Amador based her claims on gang activities in Honduras. Baquedano-Amador

testified that her problems with gangs increased in severity when her husband left Honduras for

the United States in 2011. According to Baquedano-Amador, gangs targeted her because her

husband sent her money from the United States and because she was alone and did not have anyone

to protect her. In June 2013, members of the Los Simzon gang robbed Baquedano-Amador, taking

her cell phone and bag, and threatened her with a knife. Baquedano-Amador reported the robbery

to the police, who, she asserted, “never do anything.” (A.R. 130). After the robbery, the gang

members located Baquedano-Amador and began to extort money from her on a regular basis.

Baquedano-Amador testified that her husband stopped sending her money in January 2014 because

he was not working as much and did not “like the fact of sending so much money.” (A.R. 135).

In May 2014, Baquedano-Amador reported the gang’s extortion demands to the police. When

asked if the police had investigated her claims of extortion, Baquedano-Amador responded, “They

never do.” (A.R. 134). Baquedano-Amador testified that she left Honduras in June 2014 because

she did not have any more funds to pay the gang members. Baquedano-Amador is still married to

her husband, who has been removed from the United States, but they are “not together.” (A.R.

125). Baquedano-Amador testified that she is afraid to return to Honduras because the gang

members might think that she has money and because she would not have anyone to protect her.

       At the conclusion of the removal hearing, the IJ issued an oral decision denying

Baquedano-Amador’s application for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection and

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No. 23-3733, Baquedano-Amador v. Garland

ordering her and her children’s removal to Honduras. The IJ found that Baquedano-Amador was

credible despite some discrepancies between her testimony and her corroborating evidence. The

IJ went on to determine that Baquedano-Amador’s robbery and extortion by gang members did

not amount to past persecution and that she had failed to establish an objectively reasonable fear

of persecution. The IJ next determined that Baquedano-Amador had failed to show that the

Honduran government is unable or unwilling to control gangs. According to the IJ, both of

Baquedano-Amador’s proposed social groups were not cognizable. The IJ also found that

Baquedano-Amador had failed to demonstrate that relocation within Honduras was not a

reasonable alternative.    Having failed to establish eligibility for asylum, the IJ concluded,

Baquedano-Amador had failed to satisfy the more difficult standard of proof for withholding of

removal. As for CAT protection, the IJ determined that Baquedano-Amador had failed to show

that any harm was or would be at the instigation or with the consent or acquiescence of a public

official or other person acting in an official capacity.

       The petitioners appealed the IJ’s decision to the BIA. Dismissing their appeal, the BIA

agreed with the IJ that Baquedano-Amador had failed to establish that the Honduran government

is unable or unwilling to control the private actors feared by her. Because that issue was dispositive

of Baquedano-Amador’s claims for asylum and withholding of removal, the BIA did not reach the

IJ’s alternative findings. According to the BIA, petitioners had failed to raise a substantive

challenge to the IJ’s denial of CAT protection and had therefore waived that claim.

       This timely petition for review followed. Petitioners raise two arguments: (1) the BIA

erred by treating Ortiz v. Garland, 6 F.4th 685 (6th Cir. 2021), as creating a categorical rule that

an applicant cannot prove the “unable or unwilling” element whenever a government has taken

steps to fight private violence, and (2) the totality of the evidence compels the conclusion that the

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No. 23-3733, Baquedano-Amador v. Garland

Honduran government is unable or unwilling to protect Baquedano-Amador despite the

government’s steps to combat gang violence.

         “Where, as here, the BIA issues its own decision rather than summarily affirming the IJ,

the BIA decision is reviewed as the final agency decision, but the IJ’s decision is also reviewed to

the extent that the BIA adopted it.” Harmon v. Holder, 758 F.3d 728, 732 (6th Cir. 2014). We

review the agency’s factual findings for substantial evidence, reversing only if “any reasonable

adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B); see

Khalili v. Holder, 557 F.3d 429, 435 (6th Cir. 2009). Whether the agency applied the correct legal

standard is a question of law that we review de novo. Marqus v. Barr, 968 F.3d 583, 589 (6th Cir.

2020).

         As an initial matter, the petitioners failed to exhaust before the BIA any challenge to the

IJ’s denial of CAT protection. See Santos-Zacaria v. Garland, 598 U.S. 411, 417-19 (2023)

(holding that the exhaustion requirement under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1) is not a jurisdictional

requirement but is still a mandatory claims-processing rule). Moreover, the petitioners have

forfeited any challenge to the IJ’s denial of CAT protection by failing to address that determination

in their brief in support of their petition for review. See Hih v. Lynch, 812 F.3d 551, 556 (6th Cir.

2016).

         The BIA upheld the IJ’s denial of asylum and withholding of removal on the basis that

Baquedano-Amador had failed to establish that the Honduran government is unable or unwilling

to control the private actors feared by her. Because Baquedano-Amador based her claims for

asylum and withholding of removal on non-governmental conduct, she had “the burden to show

that the [Honduran] government was unwilling or unable to control her persecutors and protect

her.” K.H. v. Barr, 920 F.3d 470, 475 (6th Cir. 2019); see Khalili, 557 F.3d at 436.

                                                -4-
No. 23-3733, Baquedano-Amador v. Garland

       In determining whether a government is unable or unwilling to control a private actor—a

factual finding reviewed for substantial evidence—the BIA “must consider the totality of the

circumstances,” including “both specific evidence about the government’s response to the crimes

inflicted on an immigrant and general evidence about a country’s ability to deter those crimes.”

Palucho v. Garland, 49 F.4th 532, 536 (6th Cir. 2022). Baquedano-Amador argues that the BIA

failed to consider the totality of the evidence and instead treated our decision in Ortiz as creating

a categorical rule that an applicant cannot prove the “unable or unwilling” element whenever a

government has taken steps to fight private violence. Contrary to Baquedano-Amador’s argument,

the BIA’s decision reflects that it considered the record as a whole, including the evidence about

her reports to the police and about the general conditions in Honduras, and did not apply any

categorical rule.

       As the BIA acknowledged, Baquedano-Amador filed two police reports about unnamed

members of the Los Simzon gang: she reported the robbery in June 2013 and the extortion in May

2014. When asked if the police investigated her reports, Baquedano-Amador responded, “They

never do anything.” (A.R. 130, 134). Baquedano-Amador did not provide any specific evidence

that the police did not investigate her reports or that they were unwilling to do so. Baquedano-

Amador’s failure to follow up with either police report further undermined any claim that the

police were unable or unwilling to protect her. See Reyes Almendarez v. Barr, 817 F. App’x 35,

41 (6th Cir. 2020).

       The BIA then turned to the country-conditions evidence, observing that gang violence was

rampant in Honduras but that the government had made efforts to control organized crime. The

country-conditions evidence in the record showed that the Honduran government had taken steps

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No. 23-3733, Baquedano-Amador v. Garland

to address gang violence and police corruption. See Palucho, 49 F.4th at 537; Ortiz, 6 F.4th at

689-90.

       The substantial-evidence standard “is not just deferential; it is ‘highly’ so.” Palucho, 49

F.4th at 540 (quoting Garland v. Ming Dai, 593 U.S. 357, 365 (2021)). The record as a whole,

including the evidence specific to Baquedano-Amador as well as the general evidence of

conditions in Honduras, does not compel the conclusion that the Honduran government is unable

or unwilling to control gangs that she fears.

       Accordingly, we DENY the petition for review.

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