Court Opinion

ID: 9906699
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-04 22:00:48.940536+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:52:23.348554
License: Public Domain

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
                               File Name: 23a0495n.06

                                          No. 23-3317

                          UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                              FILED
                               FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT                                Dec 04, 2023
                                                                            KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk

 JOAQUIN EDUARDO CARMONA-GONZALEZ, )
                                       )                      ON PETITION FOR REVIEW
      Petitioner,                      )                      OF AN ORDER OF THE
                                       )                      UNITED STATES EXECUTIVE
 v.                                    )                      OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION
                                       )                      REVIEW
 MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, )
      Respondent.                      )                                              OPINION
                                       )

Before: GRIFFIN, KETHLEDGE, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges.

       KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judge. Joaquin Eduardo Carmona-Gonzalez (Carmona) petitions

for review of an immigration judge’s determination that Carmona failed to show a reasonable

possibility that he would be persecuted or tortured if removed to Mexico. But substantial evidence

supports that determination, so we deny Carmona’s petition.

                                                I.

       Carmona was born in Mexico in 1976. His father died in 1985, while serving as mayor of

Tuxpan, Mexico. A friend told Carmona that a prominent and powerful politician—Cuauhtémoc

Cárdenas—had Carmona’s father killed because he had clashed with Cárdenas. Carmona says

that, in 2001, several men came to his home in Mexico and warned him to stay quiet about his

father’s murder or else harm would come to him and his family. The men also slapped Carmona

and told him to find somewhere else to live. Carmona said he did not report that incident to

authorities because of Cárdenas’s prominence and the prevalence of police corruption in Mexico.
No. 23-3317, Carmona-Gonzalez v. Garland

       Carmona entered the United States on a tourist visa in February 2002, and overstayed his

visa thereafter. In March 2007, when returning to the United States from Mexico, Carmona applied

for a non-immigrant visa and admitted, under oath, that he had worked illegally in the United

States and that he had no fear of returning to Mexico. DHS issued an expedited removal order and

returned Carmona to Mexico the same day.

       Four days later, border patrol agents detained Carmona as he crossed the border illegally.

Again, Carmona reported no fear of returning to Mexico, and DHS returned him there pursuant to

an expedited order of removal. Ten days later, agents detained Carmona after he again reentered

the United States illegally. This time, DHS reinstated Carmona’s prior order of removal. He also

was convicted in federal court of illegal reentry and sentenced to “time served.” The DHS then

removed Carmona to Mexico in June 2007.

       Back in Mexico, Carmona lived in Senora, where he had a relationship with a woman

whose family allegedly belonged to a cartel.           In March 2008, after Carmona ended that

relationship, cartel members ambushed and severely beat him, breaking his nose. Witnesses gave

statements to authorities and Carmona tried to press charges; but Carmona says the police erased

from Carmona’s phone text messages that contained threats from his assailants. The woman’s

father also called Carmona several times in the months that followed, threatening to make him

“pay” for ending the relationship with his daughter.

       Carmona reentered the United States yet again in May 2008 and avoided immigration

authorities until September 2019, when he was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend. Carmona was

convicted again of illegal entry and sentenced to two years’ probation in December 2022. In March

2023, DHS again reinstated Carmona’s prior removal order. This time, however, Carmona

expressed fear of returning to Mexico; DHS referred him to an asylum officer for a reasonable-

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No. 23-3317, Carmona-Gonzalez v. Garland

fear interview. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.31. The officer promptly interviewed Carmona and determined

that he had not established a reasonable fear that he would be persecuted or tortured if returned to

Mexico. See id. § 208.31(c). An immigration judge (IJ) agreed with that determination in April

2023. Carmona then filed this petition for review of the IJ’s order. Under our precedent, that order

is final for purposes of judicial review. See Kolov v. Garland, 78 F.4th 911, 918–19 (6th Cir.

2023).

                                                 II.

         The parties agree that we review the IJ’s determination for substantial evidence. We review

legal questions de novo and uphold the agency’s factual findings “unless any reasonable

adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.” Umana-Ramos v. Holder, 724 F.3d

667, 670 (6th Cir. 2013) (quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B)).

         Immigration law authorizes an expedited process for reinstatement of a prior removal order

when a previously deported alien reenters the United States illegally. See 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(5).

That process eliminates the need for new removal proceedings, and the reinstated order “is not

subject to being reopened or reviewed.” Id. Instead, the only available relief from such an order

is statutory withholding of removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A) or protection under the

Convention Against Torture (CAT). See Johnson v. Guzman Chavez, 141 S. Ct. 2271, 2282–83

(2021). Before the alien can apply for such relief, however, he must make a threshold showing of

“a reasonable possibility” either that he would be persecuted on account of a protected ground or

that he would be tortured in the country of removal. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.31(c). Carmona tried to

make both showings.

         Carmona argues that he demonstrated a reasonable possibility of persecution on account of

family relationship if removed to Mexico. Carmona claims he was subject to past persecution,

                                                 -3-
No. 23-3317, Carmona-Gonzalez v. Garland

which if true would create a presumption of future persecution. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(b)(1)(i).

Specifically, Carmona says that Cárdenas had his father killed in 1985, when Carmona was nine

years old, and that Cárdenas’s associates threatened and slapped him 16 years later, in 2001. A

reasonable adjudicator could find, however, that those incidents do not show a reasonable

possibility that Carmona would be persecuted on the basis of his family relationship. The 2001

incident does not compel a contrary finding because only the “most immediate and menacing” of

threats constitute past persecution. See Japarkulova v. Holder, 615 F.3d 696, 701 (6th Cir. 2010)

(citation omitted). The murder of Carmona’s father itself was not past persecution of Carmona on

account of his family relationship because that killing was not the result of a family relationship.

(Instead, Carmona admits it was based on a personal political conflict.) See Guzman-Vazquez v.

Barr, 959 F.3d 253, 274 (6th Cir. 2020).

       Carmona fears future persecution because, he says, Cárdenas might think Carmona would

make trouble about his father’s death in 1985. But Carmona’s father died more than 35 years ago,

and Carmona received only one warning to stay quiet more than 20 years ago. Carmona responds

by pointing to a December 2018 incident in which armed men allegedly broke into a ranch owned

by Carmona’s family in Mexico, stole everything of value, and threatened to kill Carmona if they

found him. (He was in the United States at the time.) But the IJ saw no connection between those

threats and Cárdenas. The evidence does not compel a contrary conclusion.

       Carmona also argues that he demonstrated a reasonable possibility that he would be

tortured in Mexico—either because Cárdenas would come after him or because his ex-girlfriend’s

family would attack him. The regulations define torture as severe pain or suffering that is

intentionally “inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of” a person

                                                -4-
No. 23-3317, Carmona-Gonzalez v. Garland

acting in an official capacity. 8 C.F.R. § 208.18(a)(1); see also Amir v. Gonzales, 467 F.3d 921,

927 (6th Cir. 2006).

       Carmona has not made that showing here. The IJ found nothing that tied the December

2018 threats to either Cárdenas or his ex-girlfriend’s family. Carmona fears his ex-girlfriend’s

family will harm him because he broke up with her in March 2008. But Carmona left Mexico in

May 2008, and admits he has not been threatened by them since then. Moreover, the IJ agreed

with the asylum officer’s finding that no evidence established “a reasonable possibility that a

public official would consent or acquiesce to future harm” to Carmona by his ex-girlfriend’s

family. Substantial evidence supports both those findings by the IJ.

       Finally, Carmona argues that gaps in his hearing transcript violated due process because,

he says, they preclude meaningful review of the IJ’s decision. But Carmona himself did not testify

before the IJ; the hearing transcript makes clear that the IJ reviewed all the materials that Carmona

had submitted. The gaps in the transcript therefore lacked prejudicial effect. See Abdallahi v.

Holder, 690 F.3d 467, 472 (6th Cir. 2012).

                                             *         *     *

       The petition for review is denied.

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