NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 2 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT JOSE LUIS EDUARDO MENDEZ- No. 15-70900 MORALES, AKA Jose Mendez, AKA EA Morales, Agency No. A205-313-279 Petitioner, MEMORANDUM* v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted August 15, 2019 Pasadena, California Before: CALLAHAN and CHRISTEN, Circuit Judges, and WU,** District Judge. Petitioner Jose Luis Eduardo Mendez-Morales (Mendez) is a native and citizen of Guatemala. He seeks review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denying his applications for withholding of removal and protection * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable George H. Wu, United States District Judge for the Central District of California, sitting by designation. under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a). We grant the petition and remand to the BIA for further proceedings as to the claim for withholding of removal, and we deny the petition as to the claim for protection under CAT.1 “We review the denial of . . . withholding of removal and CAT claims for substantial evidence. Under this standard, we must uphold the agency determination unless the evidence compels a contrary conclusion.” Duran- Rodriguez v. Barr, 918 F.3d 1025, 1028 (9th Cir. 2019) (citations omitted). Mendez argues he is eligible for withholding of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act because he is a member of a particular social group—Guatemalans who suffer from Schizoaffective Disorder—and there is a clear probability he will be persecuted on account of his membership in that group if he is removed to Guatemala. The BIA rejected Mendez’s claim on the ground that Mendez failed to show a nexus between the feared harm and his membership in the asserted particular social group. After the BIA’s decision, we held that the nexus requirement for withholding of removal is different than for asylum. Barajas-Romero v. Lynch, 846 F.3d 351, 359–60 (9th Cir. 2017). The BIA relied on then-existing precedent to satisfy the nexus requirement; specifically, it applied 1 The facts are familiar to the parties and are restated here only as necessary to resolve the issues of the petition for review. 2 the rule that applicants for asylum and withholding of removal must show that a protected ground was “one central reason” for the persecution. See Zetino v. Holder, 622 F.3d 1007, 1015 (9th Cir. 2010). Under Barajas-Romero, the nexus standard for withholding of removal claims is “a reason” rather than “one central reason.” Barajas-Romero, 846 F.3d at 360. At oral argument, the government acknowledged that if the panel determined there was evidence of mixed motives in the record, it would be appropriate to remand for application of the correct standard.2 The expert testimony indicates that Mendez may be targeted for persecution because of his mental ...
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