NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION File Name: 18a0549n.06 No. 17-4149 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT MIREYA BRAVO ESCOBAR; BENIGNA ) ESCOBAR SANCHEZ; ALEJANDRA ) FILED CARDENAS BRAVO; MARIA DEL ) Nov 01, 2018 CARMEN HERNANDEZ BRAVO; JOSE ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk SANTOS HERNANDEZ BRAVO; ) MARIA GUADALUPE HERNANDEZ ) BRAVO, ) Petitioners, ) ) v. ) JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS, III, Attorney ) ON PETITION FROM A FINAL General, ) ORDER OF THE BOARD OF ) IMMIGRATION APPEALS Respondent. ) OPINION BEFORE: NORRIS, DONALD, and BUSH, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM. Petitioners, Mexican citizens Mireya Bravo Escobar (“Bravo”) and her mother, Benigna Escobar Sanchez (“Escobar”), each filed applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and for protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). Their applications, along with the derivative applications filed by Bravo on behalf of four minor children, were consolidated below. After a hearing, an immigration judge denied relief. Petitioners elected not to seek review of this decision with the Board of Immigration Appeals (“the Board”). Instead they filed a motion with the immigration judge to reopen their removal proceedings based upon their former attorneys’ ineffective assistance. The immigration judge denied the motion to reopen; that decision was unsuccessfully appealed to the Board. Petitioners now seek review in this court. Bravo Escobar v. Sessions No. 17-4149 I. Petitioners arrived in the United States on March 5, 2015, without the required documentation. They were served with notices to appear and subsequently conceded that they were subject to removal. They appeared for a merits hearing on September 26, 2016. Petitioners both testified that they fled from Mexico because of their connection to former Guerrero State police officer Fortino Bravo Teran, who is Bravo’s father and Escobar’s husband. At the hearing, counsel for petitioners framed his clients’ claim to the immigration judge as based upon their status as members of a “[p]olitical group imputed by their familial affiliation with anti- cartel activities.” Bravo testified first and explained that she came to the United States with her children to escape from the “La Familia” cartel, which was “upset at my family” because her father was a police officer. The cartel had kidnapped him in December 2014 and held him for a ransom of 10,000 pesos. He was released after three days when the ransom was paid. He left the police force shortly thereafter and was hiding in Mexico at the time of Bravo’s testimony. Petitioners submitted a letter from him as part of their application. While Fortino states in the letter that he continues to hide for fear of being kidnapped, nowhere does he mention serving as a police officer. When asked about the nature of the violence directed at her family, Bravo responded, “They arrived at my house asking for me to feed 50 people. And they also asked me for money.” She recalled that ten to fifteen armed cartel members began coming to her house at the beginning of 2015. They threatened that they would take one of her ...
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