Court Opinion

ID: 9953358
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-21 21:01:02.024512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:46:00.323271
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                For the Seventh Circuit
                    ____________________
No. 22-3035
TANIA LIZETH BORJAS CRUZ and
IAN JARED MIDENCE BORJAS,
                                                       Petitioners,

                                v.

MERRICK GARLAND, Attorney General
of the United States,
                                                       Respondent.
                    ____________________

                 Petition for Review of an Order of
                the Board of Immigration Appeals.
              No. A209-282-347 and No. A209-282-348.
                    ____________________

   ARGUED JANUARY 24, 2024 — DECIDED MARCH 21, 2024
               ____________________

   Before WOOD, SCUDDER, and LEE, Circuit Judges.
   WOOD, Circuit Judge. Tania Lizeth Borjas Cruz and her mi-
nor son, both Honduran citizens, challenge the denial of their
application for asylum and withholding of removal. Borjas
Cruz sought relief on the basis that she had been, and would
continue to be, persecuted by extortionists in Honduras.
2                                                       No. 22-3035

    An immigration judge determined that Borjas Cruz was
ineligible for asylum and withholding of removal on several
grounds, and the Board of Immigration Appeals (“Board”)
saw no error in that decision. We see no reason to set aside the
Board’s ruling either as it applies to her or to her son. (Insofar
as Borjas Cruz seeks asylum, her son’s application is deriva-
tive. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(3)(A); he is not included in her ap-
plication for withholding of removal.) Substantial evidence
supports one of the Board’s reasons: its determination that
Borjas Cruz has not established that she was, or would be,
persecuted on account of a protected status. That determina-
tion is dispositive, and so we deny the petition for review.
                                  I
    In March 2016, Borjas Cruz was living in Tela, Honduras,
with her then-nine-year-old son. She opened a business sell-
ing food and clothing out of her home, and she publicized her
wares on social media. As far as we can tell, things brieﬂy ran
smoothly until one morning in April 2016, when a car driven
by a man pulled up to Borjas Cruz’s home. A woman got out
of the car, demanded that Borjas Cruz pay 5,000 lempiras 1 at
a speciﬁed time and place, and promised that Borjas Cruz
could continue to work undisturbed if she complied. Borjas
Cruz did not recognize the man or the woman, but she had
heard horror stories of the fates of those who had refused to
comply with similar extortion demands, and so she paid as
directed.

    1 For context, we note that one Honduran lempira equaled a little

more than US $0.04 in 2016. The demand was thus for a bit more than US
$200.
No. 22-3035                                                   3

     The same woman returned to Borjas Cruz’s home in July
2016, again in a car driven by an unidentiﬁed man. This time
the woman was more aggressive: she ordered Borjas Cruz to
pay 16,000 lempiras no later than that afternoon, warned that
she would return if Borjas Cruz contacted the police, and
threatened to “clean the house” if Borjas Cruz failed to com-
ply. Borjas Cruz understood this phrase to mean that gang
members would come to her home, kill her and everyone in
it, and steal the belongings inside. Unable to aﬀord the pay-
ment and terriﬁed of the extortionists, Borjas Cruz and her
son decided to ﬂee their hometown. They took a three-to-
four-hour bus ride to Puerto Cortés, Honduras, hoping to
seek refuge with Borjas Cruz’s aunt, who lives there. But her
aunt allowed Borjas Cruz and her son to stay only for one
week. During that brief sojourn, they were unharmed and un-
threatened. At the end of the week, Borjas Cruz’s aunt insisted
that they leave, as she feared that extortionists might follow
Borjas Cruz to Puerto Cortés and put her life in danger as well.
   To escape the extortion and fear, the next move Borjas
Cruz and her son made was to the United States, in August
2016. Neither one had the required documentation to enter
lawfully. Shortly thereafter the Department of Homeland Se-
curity initiated removal proceedings. Borjas Cruz conceded
her removability, but she sought asylum, withholding of re-
moval, and protection under the Convention Against Torture
(“CAT”).
   At her hearing before an immigration judge, Borjas Cruz
described her encounters with the extortionists. She testiﬁed
that she believed that there was no place in Honduras where
she and her son could safely live. Although Borjas Cruz did
not know whether her extortionists were aﬃliated with a
4                                                  No. 22-3035

particular criminal group, she suspected that they were mem-
bers of a gang that could track her whereabouts. Compound-
ing this fear, Borjas Cruz had heard stories of business owners
in Honduras who were targeted for extortion and had suf-
fered dire consequences. These stories involved a particular
male business owner who was killed by extortionists after he
called the police, a male taxi driver and a male bodega owner
who were routinely extorted by gang members, and several
boys who closed their food service stand after repeated extor-
tion incidents. Along with her testimony, Borjas Cruz submit-
ted several U.S. State Department reports and news articles
describing the pervasiveness of gang violence, extortion, and
police corruption in Honduras.
    The immigration judge found Borjas Cruz credible but
deemed her ineligible for asylum, withholding of removal,
and CAT protection. With respect to Borjas Cruz’s asylum re-
quest, the judge ﬁrst determined that the threats Borjas Cruz
had received, “although serious,” were not severe or immi-
nent enough to qualify as past persecution. The judge also re-
jected her claim that she would be persecuted in the future,
for three dispositive reasons, each of which (if correct) would
independently support his decision.
    The judge ﬁrst addressed Borjas Cruz’s asylum applica-
tion. In order to be eligible for asylum, an applicant must
show that she qualiﬁes as a “refugee,” a term deﬁned by the
statute as someone who is unable or unwilling to return to her
country because of persecution based on one of ﬁve grounds:
race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social
group, or political opinion. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42). Borjas Cruz
argued that she was a member of three social groups: (1) Hon-
duran female business owners who refused to cooperate with
No. 22-3035                                                  5

gangs, (2) Honduran women living alone who oppose gang
violence, and (3) women in Honduras. The judge found that
none of these were cognizable under the Immigration and Na-
tionality Act. He explained that Borjas Cruz’s ﬁrst two pro-
posed social groups failed because they are primarily deﬁned
by the shared risk of being persecuted. The third group—
“women in Honduras”—was too broad.
    Moving on, the immigration judge also found that even if
he gave Borjas Cruz the beneﬁt of the doubt with respect to
her proposed social groups, her application still had to be re-
jected because she had not established a causal link between
her claim of persecution and her membership in any of those
groups. The judge found that based on the evidence pre-
sented, Borjas Cruz was targeted not because of her sex, busi-
ness ownership, or opposition to gangs, but rather because
the extortionists believed that she had money that they could
seize.
    Finally, the judge ruled that Borjas Cruz had failed to es-
tablish that she could not avoid future harm by relocating
within Honduras. As he saw it, Borjas Cruz and her son had
safely relocated to Puerto Cortés (though he did not
acknowledge how ﬂeeting this relocation was, nor that it
failed when the aunt evicted her), that no threats had been
communicated to Borjas Cruz other than the two extortion in-
cidents in 2016 (though she was no longer in Honduras after
the second threat), and that no evidence indicated that Borjas
Cruz’s unidentiﬁed extortionists would have the motivation
or resources to track her.
   For the same reasons, the immigration judge denied Borjas
Cruz’s request for withholding of removal. As to her request
for CAT protection, the judge found that Borjas Cruz had
6                                                  No. 22-3035

neither shown past torture nor that anyone intends to harm
her should she be returned to Honduras.
   The Board aﬃrmed the immigration judge’s decision and
dismissed the appeal. Borjas Cruz now petitions for review.
                               II
    Before this court, Borjas Cruz has expressly waived any
challenge to the Board’s denial of her claim for CAT protec-
tion, and its determination that she did not experience past
persecution. Those concessions helpfully narrow the issues in
her petition to her requests for asylum and withholding of re-
moval based on her fear of future persecution. Where, as here,
the Board adopts the immigration judge’s ﬁndings and adds
its own analysis, we review the underlying decision as sup-
plemented by the Board. W.G.A. v. Sessions, 900 F.3d 957, 962
(7th Cir. 2018). We consider legal conclusions de novo and fac-
tual ﬁndings for “substantial evidence.” Meraz-Saucedo v.
Rosen, 986 F.3d 676, 684 (7th Cir. 2021). “Under the substantial
evidence standard, the agency’s ‘ﬁndings of fact are conclu-
sive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to
conclude to the contrary.’” Id. (quoting Nasrallah v. Barr, 140
S. Ct. 1683, 1692 (2020)).
    To be eligible for asylum, Borjas Cruz must demonstrate
that she is “unable or unwilling to return” to Honduras “be-
cause of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on
account of” one of the ﬁve statutory characteristics or aﬃlia-
tions we mentioned earlier. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(42),
1158(b)(1)(B)(i). Borjas Cruz claims only membership in par-
ticular social groups to support her asylum claim. To qualify
for asylum on this basis, she must (1) identify a cognizable
social group to which she belongs and (2) establish a nexus
No. 22-3035                                                     7

between any past or feared future harm and her membership
in that social group. Escobar v. Holder, 657 F.3d 537, 545 (7th
Cir. 2011). Membership in the protected group must be “at
least one central reason” for the persecution. 8 U.S.C.
§ 1158(b)(1)(B)(i); Gonzalez Ruano v. Barr, 922 F.3d 346, 352 (7th
Cir. 2019). And because Borjas Cruz grounds her petition on
a well-founded fear of future persecution committed by a
non-government actor, she has the added burdens of showing
a link between that private action and the Honduran govern-
ment, as well as establishing that she cannot reasonably relo-
cate within Honduras to avoid the feared harm. See 8 C.F.R.
§ 1208.13(b)(3)(i). Withholding of removal requires the same
showings. See 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A); 8 C.F.R.
§ 1208.16(b)(3)(i).
    Borjas Cruz devotes much of her attention to contesting
the Board’s determination that she did not identify a cogniza-
ble social group. The government, however, has opted not to
raise any substantive arguments defending that decision. We
see no reason to opine on the point in the face of the govern-
ment’s waiver. We thus assume for the sake of argument that
one or more of Borjas Cruz’s proposed social groups—“Hon-
duran female business owners who refuse to cooperate with
gangs,” “Honduran women living alone who oppose gang vi-
olence,” and “women in Honduras”—are cognizable, and we
turn immediately to the question whether Borjas Cruz has es-
tablished the nexus between her membership in any such
group and her feared persecution.
                                A
   With respect to the latter question, we are satisﬁed that
substantial evidence supports the Board’s determination that
she has not established the requisite link. As the immigration
8                                                 No. 22-3035

judge (and the Board) recognized, our decision in Melnik v.
Sessions is on point. 891 F.3d 278, 287–88 (7th Cir. 2018). In
Melnik, we aﬃrmed the Board’s ﬁnding of no nexus between
the petitioners’ proﬀered group of “small business owners”
in Ukraine and the claimed persecution, where no evidence
indicated that the extortionists who targeted them had “any
particular animus toward small business owners[.]” Id. at 287.
At bottom, the Melnik petitioners were “simply a convenient
target of a criminal element looking for a source of income.”
Id. Yet we have held that “wealth, standing alone, is not … a
cognizable social group.” Orellana-Arias v. Sessions, 865 F.3d
476, 485 (7th Cir. 2017) (quoting Dominguez-Pulido v. Lynch,
821 F.3d 837, 845 (7th Cir. 2016)). Melnik, then, makes a key
point: in a case involving extortion, the petitioner must show
that the persecutor had some motivation to target the social
group at issue beyond the mere desire to obtain money.
     Borjas Cruz has not made this showing. She has presented
no evidence to suggest that the unidentiﬁed extortionists who
threatened her had any particular interest in singling out fe-
male business owners, women who live alone, or women at
all. To the contrary, it appears from the record before us that
the extortionists targeted Borjas Cruz simply because they
thought she had money, as the owner of a successful small
business. Borjas Cruz testiﬁed before the immigration judge
that the unidentiﬁed woman who extorted her said that “eve-
ryone with a business is charged” the same amount. (Empha-
sis added). Moreover, the stories she recounted that fueled
her fear of being harmed in the future, horriﬁc though they
were, involved only male business owners who were targeted
by gang members. Borjas Cruz’s own testimony thus supports
the Board’s ﬁnding that her perceived wealth, not her sex,
made her a target for extortion.
No. 22-3035                                                     9

     In response, Borjas Cruz contends that extortionists in
Honduras target women because they know that women are
less likely than men to report crimes or to receive eﬀective
protection. Yet her only support for this assertion comes from
U.S. State Department reports ﬁnding that women in Hondu-
ras often do not report crimes because of fear, police corrup-
tion, and high impunity rates. This is the type of generalized
evidence in a country report that we have said “is an ‘insuﬃ-
cient basis for granting asylum[.]’” Yuan Rong Chen v. Gonza-
les, 457 F.3d 670, 675 (7th Cir. 2006) (quoting Rashiah v. Ash-
croft, 388 F.3d 1126, 1133 (7th Cir. 2004)). In the absence of any
particularized evidence that Borjas Cruz herself would be
more of a target upon return because she is a woman, her
claim that she fears persecution based on her sex is too spec-
ulative to establish the requisite nexus.
                                B
    We end with a few words on the other ground mentioned
by the immigration judge—his ﬁnding that Borjas Cruz could
reasonably relocate within Honduras to avoid future harm.
See 8 C.F.R. §§ 1208.13(b)(3)(i), 1208.16(b)(3)(i). We are reluc-
tant to endorse that conclusion, because we regard this issue
as more complicated than the immigration judge made it out
to be. As the immigration judge saw it, Borjas Cruz and her
son had successfully ﬂed their hometown when they lived
with Borjas Cruz’s aunt in Puerto Cortés for one week. The
judge noted that no threats were communicated to Borjas
Cruz during that time. In addition, because no evidence indi-
cated that the unidentiﬁed woman who extorted Borjas Cruz
has ties with any criminal organization, he thought that “it is
impossible to know whether that woman would have the ge-
ographic reach necessary to threaten or harm” Borjas Cruz.
10                                                  No. 22-3035

But the judge did not grapple with the fact that Borjas Cruz’s
aunt insisted that Borjas Cruz leave her home after one week,
as she feared that continuing to harbor Borjas Cruz would put
her own life at risk. We are reluctant to infer from such a short
stay in Puerto Cortés—one that was ended for such a trou-
bling reason—that Borjas Cruz could safely relocate to an-
other part of Honduras.
    But we need not decide whether substantial evidence
nonetheless supports the immigration judge’s ﬁnding that re-
location within Honduras was possible. The Board did not
speciﬁcally discuss this ﬁnding, though it purported to aﬃrm
the immigration judge’s decision in its entirety. Nor do we
need to address any of Borjas Cruz’s remaining arguments.
As we have explained, substantial evidence supports the
Board’s determination that Borjas Cruz has not established a
nexus between the persecution she fears and her membership
in a particular social group. That alone requires us to uphold
the Board’s decision that Borjas Cruz has not established eli-
gibility for asylum or withholding of removal. Orellana-Arias,
865 F.3d at 484.
     The petition for review is therefore DENIED.