USCA11 Case: 21-11060 Date Filed: 06/02/2022 Page: 1 of 16 [DO NOT PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 21-11060 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ MIRTHA MARCHENA CHAVEZ, Petitioner, versus U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. ____________________ Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals Agency No. A205-753-336 ____________________ USCA11 Case: 21-11060 Date Filed: 06/02/2022 Page: 2 of 16 2 Opinion of the Court 21-11060 Before ROSENBAUM, LUCK, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Mirtha Marchena Chavez (“Marchena”) petitions for review of an order by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), affirming the decision of an immigration judge (“IJ”), which (a) denied a con- tinuance after venue for the final removal hearing was changed from New Jersey to Georgia without her input, (b) ruled her ineli- gible for asylum and withholding of removal due to a prior convic- tion for a “particularly serious crime,” and (c) denied relief under the United Nations Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). Marchena argues that the change in venue violated her due-process rights, that the agency erred by skipping a step when analyzing whether her conviction for conspiracy to commit aggravated as- sault constituted a “particularly serious crime,” and that the agency made legal and factual errors when evaluating her claim for CAT relief. After careful review, we deny the petition in part and dismiss it in part. I. Marchena, a native and citizen of Peru, entered the United States in 1996. She moved to New Jersey, where she married and raised three children. She also was arrested for and convicted of several criminal offenses. As relevant here, in 2012, she was charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit mur- der, arising from an alleged plot to murder her husband, and she USCA11 Case: 21-11060 Date Filed: 06/02/2022 Page: 3 of 16 21-11060 Opinion of the Court 3 later pled guilty to the reduced charge of conspiracy to commit ag- gravated assault. For that offense, she was sentenced to three years in prison and three years of probation. A. In August 2015, Marchena was served with a notice to ap- pear by the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”). DHS al- leged that she was removable for being present without authoriza- tion and because her conviction for conspiracy to commit aggra- vated assault was a crime involving moral turpitude. Through counsel, Marchena admitted the factual allegations and conceded the charged grounds for removal. In June 2016, Marchena filed an application for asylum, with- holding of removal, and protection under CAT. She updated her application several times, with a final version submitted in August 2020. She indicated that she fled Peru after being beaten, raped, and left for dead by members of the Communist Party of Peru, or “Shining Path,” which she said was a large gang that had corrupted the country. And she decried a culture of violence against women in Peru, which included killings, disappearances, and sex traffick- ing. In a brief submitted with the final application, Marchena …
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