Court Opinion

ID: 9363229
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-13 18:58:05.572593+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:30.111905
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                        FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                       DEC 22 2022
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                              FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

GUILLERMO URENDA-BUSTOS, AKA                    No.    20-70625
Jose Basorta-Zamora,
                                                Agency No. A200-242-307
                Petitioner,

 v.                                             MEMORANDUM*

MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,

                Respondent.

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

                          Submitted December 9, 2022**
                            San Francisco, California

Before: NGUYEN and KOH, Circuit Judges, and BOUGH,*** District Judge.

      Guillermo Urenda-Bustos (“Urenda-Bustos”), a native and citizen of

Mexico, petitions this court for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration

      *
             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).
      ***
            The Honorable Stephen R. Bough, United States District Judge for the
Western District of Missouri, sitting by designation.
Appeals (“BIA”) affirming the denial by an immigration judge (“IJ”) of Urenda-

Bustos’s applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the

Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C.

§ 1252. We grant the petition for review and remand for proceedings consistent

with this disposition.1

         The sole issue before us is the BIA’s resolution of Urenda-Bustos’s

argument that the IJ erred in failing to consider humanitarian asylum, see 8 C.F.R.

§ 1208.13(b)(1)(iii). The BIA’s decision in this respect appears to rest on a

conclusion that Urenda-Bustos had not established past persecution on account of a

protected ground, but the BIA’s order does not explain how it reached that

conclusion. Remand is thus required because this court cannot meaningfully

review the BIA’s decision. See Rodriguez-Matamoros v. I.N.S., 86 F.3d 158, 161

(9th Cir. 1996) (remanding where BIA’s conclusory statement did not enable the

“reviewing court to see that the Board has heard, considered, and decided”

(quoting Villanueva-Franco v. I.N.S., 802 F.2d 327, 330 (9th Cir. 1986))).2

         PETITION GRANTED; REMANDED.

1
    In light of our ruling, the motion for a stay of removal is denied as moot.
2
  The government contends that the BIA’s particularly serious crime determination
rendered Urenda-Bustos statutorily ineligible for humanitarian asylum. However,
the BIA did not base its rejection of Urenda-Bustos’s humanitarian asylum
argument on that ground. “[T]his court cannot affirm the BIA on a ground upon
which it did not rely.” Navas v. I.N.S., 217 F.3d 646, 658 n.16 (9th Cir. 2000).

                                            2