Luis Cayetano-Hernandez v. Matthew Whitaker


NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 5 2018 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT LUIS CAYETANO-HERNANDEZ, No. 17-72119 Petitioner, Agency No. A206-191-825 v. MEMORANDUM* MATTHEW G. WHITAKER, Acting Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted November 5, 2018 Seattle, Washington Before: McKEOWN and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges, and GAITAN,** District Judge. Luis Cayetano-Hernandez, a native and citizen of Mexico, seeks review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming the denial by an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) of his request for asylum, withholding of removal and * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Fernando J. Gaitan, Jr., United States District Judge for the Western District of Missouri, sitting by designation. protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We deny the petition in part, grant it in part, and remand to the BIA. “Where . . . the BIA has reviewed the IJ’s decision and incorporated portions of it as its own, we treat the incorporated parts of the IJ’s decision as the BIA’s.” Molina-Estrada v. INS, 293 F.3d 1089, 1093 (9th Cir. 2002). See also Ling Huang v. Holder, 744 F.3d 1149, 1152 (9th Cir. 2014) (reviewing both the BIA and IJ’s decisions where the BIA adopted the IJ’s decision and added some of its own analysis). The agency’s factual findings are reviewed for substantial evidence. Villavicencio v. Sessions, 904 F.3d 658, 663 (9th Cir. 2018); Bringas-Rodriguez v. Sessions, 850 F.3d 1051, 1059 (9th Cir. 2017) (en banc). Underlying decisions should be upheld if they are “supported by ‘reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole.’” Abebe v. Gonzales, 432 F.3d 1037, 1039-40 (9th Cir. 2005) (quoting Mejia-Paiz v. INS, 111 F.3d 720, 722 (9th Cir. 1997)). Reversal is warranted where the record compels a reasonable fact finder to conclude that the IJ’s decision was incorrect. Zhou v. Gonzales, 437 F.3d 860, 865 (9th Cir. 2006). Sanjaa v. Sessions, 863 F.3d 1161, 1164 (9th Cir. 2017) (“To reverse the BIA, we must determine that the evidence not only supports [a contrary] conclusion, but compels it – and also compels the further conclusion that 2 the petitioner meets the requisite standard for obtaining relief.” (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). To qualify for asylum, an application must demonstrate either past persecution or a reasonable possibility of future persecution. Cayetano has not alleged past persecution. In order to show future persecution, he may demonstrate that there is a “‘reasonable possibility’ that he will be ‘singled out individually for persecution’ if removed,” or “he may show that there is a systematic ‘pattern or practice’ of persecution against the group to which he belongs in his home country, such that, even without any evidence of individual targeting, his fear of ...

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