Court Opinion

ID: 9912568
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-22 19:00:55.648789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:00:17.779306
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                          FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                       DEC 22 2023
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                            FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

BEATRIZ TORREBLANCA                             No. 21-1387
RIVERA; AIMAR ESTRELLA BRINGAS                  Agency Nos.
TORREBLANCA,                                    A209-163-918
                                                A209-163-919
             Petitioners,

 v.                                             MEMORANDUM*

MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,

             Respondent.

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

                            Submitted October 18, 2023**
                               Pasadena, California

Before: CLIFTON and SANCHEZ, Circuit Judges, and KORMAN, District
Judge.***

      Beatriz Torreblanca Rivera (“Lead Petitioner”) and her minor daughter,

      *
             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 Edward R. Korman, United States District Judge for
the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.
Aimar Estrella Bringas Torreblanca (together, “Petitioners”), natives and citizens

of Mexico, petition for review of the dismissal by the Board of Immigration

Appeals (“BIA”) of their appeal of the denial of their applications for asylum,

withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”)

by an Immigration Judge (“IJ”). We deny the petition for review.

      Where, as here, the BIA has conducted its own review of the evidence and

law, our review is limited to the BIA’s decision, except to the extent that the BIA

expressly adopts the IJ’s opinion. Guerra v. Barr, 974 F.3d 909, 911 (9th Cir.

2020). “We review purely legal questions de novo, and the agency's factual

findings for substantial evidence.” Perez-Portillo v. Garland, 56 F.4th 788, 792

(9th Cir. 2022).

      1.      Petitioners have waived review of the denial of asylum and

withholding of removal claims by failing to challenge the BIA’s alternative

conclusions. “Issues raised in a brief that are not supported by argument are

deemed abandoned.” Martinez-Serrano v. INS, 94 F.3d 1256, 1259 (9th Cir. 1996).

Only those issues which are “argued specifically and distinctly in a party's opening

brief” will be considered for review. Greenwood v. FAA, 28 F.3d 971, 977 (9th

Cir. 1994).

      The BIA set forth three separate dispositive grounds for the denial of asylum

and withholding of removal. Petitioners’ opening brief addressed only one, that

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petitioner failed to establish a nexus between the harm and a protected ground. The

BIA’s other dispositive findings were not substantively challenged in the brief. The

BIA concluded that the threats which Lead Petitioner endured did not rise to the

level of persecution. Petitioners’ brief highlights no record evidence to dispute that

determination, and the legal arguments supposedly addressing the issue are in fact

directed to the nexus issue. Moreover, the brief does not address the BIA’s

determination that Lead Petitioner did not demonstrate an objectively reasonable

fear of future persecution. Petitioners have thus failed to contest conclusions by the

BIA sufficient to support its denial of relief, and those issues are therefore waived.

      Petitioners have also waived review of the denial of CAT protection. To

prevail, a petitioner must demonstrate that the BIA failed to consider part of the

record or made determinations that were not supported by substantial evidence.

Petitioners’ opening brief simply restates the factual arguments rejected by the IJ

and BIA without engaging in a novel factual analysis or challenging the BIA’s

factual findings. Because the CAT challenge is similarly unsupported by argument,

it is also waived.

      2.     Even if the challenges were not waived, Petitioners’ arguments fail on

the merits. Petitioners argue that substantial evidence does not support the BIA’s

conclusions that Lead Petitioner (1) had not established harm rising to the level of

persecution, (2) failed to show that any such persecution was on account of her

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membership in a statutorily-protected particular social group, and (3) did not

demonstrate that she was more likely than not to be tortured in Mexico, by or with

the acquiescence of a public official. “The BIA’s factual findings are conclusive

unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the

contrary.” Villavicencio v. Sessions, 904 F.3d 658, 663-64 (9th Cir. 2018).

      The record evidence does not compel the conclusion that Lead Petitioner

suffered incidents rising to the level of persecution. Persecution is “an extreme

concept, marked by the infliction of suffering or harm … in a way regarded as

offensive.” Lin v. Holder, 610 F.3d 1093, 1097 (9th Cir. 2010) (alteration in

original). Lead Petitioner received three telephonic threats from members of the El

Gavilan gang, in which the callers demanded money to allow Lead Petitioner to

continue operating her business and threatened her family if she failed to pay.

Although Lead Petitioner testified that she felt forced to shut down the business

and relocate to a nearby town because she was unable to pay the demands,

unfulfilled threats alone rarely rise to the level of persecution, and only where they

are “so menacing as to cause actual or significant suffering or harm” have they

been found to constitute persecution. Lim v. INS, 224 F.3d 929, 936 (9th Cir. 2000)

(quotation omitted). In essence, although the threats may have constituted

harassment, they were not so extreme as to compel the conclusion that they rose to

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the level of persecution. See Hoxha v. Ashcroft, 319 F.3d 1179, 1182 (9th Cir.

2003).

      Lead Petitioner similarly does not show that the harm suffered was “on

account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or

political opinion.” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). She asserts that she was persecuted

on account of her membership in the particular social groups defined as “adult

widowed Mexican women who are extorted by the Mexican cartels and reported

it” and individuals with “kinship ties … to victims of violent crimes committed by

cartels,” 1 but the record does not compel that finding. Substantial evidence

supports a finding that Lead Petitioner was more likely the victim of “harassment

by criminals motivated by theft or random violence by gang members bear[ing] no

nexus to a protected ground.” Zetino v. Holder, 622 F.3d 1007, 1016 (9th Cir.

2010). Indeed, by her own account, Lead Petitioner never had any contact with the

El Gavilan gang until she began operating her own business, roughly a year and a

half after her husband’s murder.

1
  Petitioners also challenge the BIA’s determination that these proposed particular
social groups (PSGs) lack the requisite particularity and social distinction to be
cognizable. A PSG is socially distinct if “members of the proposed group would be
perceived as a group by society.” Reyes v. Lynch, 842 F.3d 1125, 1136 (9th Cir.
2016). None of Petitioners’ evidence, including the country condition reports in the
record, gives any indication that society in general perceives the proposed PSGs as
“set apart, or distinct, from other persons within a society.” Diaz-Reynoso v. Barr,
968 F.3d 1070, 1077 (9th Cir. 2020). Thus, the groups cannot be considered
cognizable.

                                        5                                   21-1387
      Finally, substantial evidence supports the BIA’s conclusion that Lead

Petitioner was ineligible for CAT relief. To establish eligibility, the applicant must

establish that she will more likely than not be tortured in the country of removal,

by or with the acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official

capacity. Davila v. Barr, 968 F.3d 1136, 1144 (9th Cir. 2020). As the BIA

reasonably determined that Lead Petitioner’s harm did not rise to the level of

persecution, it follows that it cannot qualify as torture. See id. at 1144. Her

subjective fear that gang members might continue to seek her out is insufficient, as

CAT protection requires “an [entirely] objective basis of fear.” Tamang v. Holder,

598 F.3d 1083, 1095 (9th Cir. 2010). Additionally, Lead Petitioner argues, without

more, that the Mexican government is incapable of preventing her torture or

murder. But “a general ineffectiveness on the government’s part to investigate and

prevent crime will not suffice to show acquiescence.” Andrade-Garcia v. Lynch,

828 F.3d 829, 836 (9th Cir. 2016). Accordingly, each of the BIA’s conclusions is

supported by substantial evidence.

      PETITION DENIED.

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