NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS APR 27 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT ISIDRO CARASSO-GONZALEZ, No. 17-70105 Petitioner, Agency No. A079-392-256 v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted February 14, 2019 Pasadena, California Vacated October 7, 2019 Resubmitted April 20, 2020 Before: CALLAHAN and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges, and KORMAN,** District Judge.*** * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Edward R. Korman, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation. *** Pursuant to Ninth Circuit General Order 3.2.h, Judge Hurwitz was drawn by lot to replace our late colleague Judge Raymond T. Fisher. Judge Hurwitz has reviewed the record and briefs in this case and listened to the oral argument before the prior panel. Isidro Carasso-Gonzalez, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions for review of a final removal order issued by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), denying his application for withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). As the parties are familiar with the facts and procedural history, we do not recount them here. We deny in part and grant in part Carasso-Gonzalez’s petition for review. 1. Carasso-Gonzalez argues he is eligible for withholding of removal because (1) his proposed particular social group of “individuals with severe and chronic mental illness in Mexico who exhibit erratic behavior” is cognizable, and (2) it is more likely than not that his social group is “a reason” that his life or freedom will be threatened in Mexico. As to the first argument, we conclude the agency did not err in rejecting his proposed social group. Both the IJ and BIA reasonably concluded that this proposed social group was insufficiently particular because “the terms ‘severe’ and ‘chronic’ are general in nature without reference to specific characteristics.” See Henriquez-Rivas v. Holder, 707 F.3d 1081, 1091 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc) (“The ‘particularity’ requirement . . . is relevant in considering whether a group’s boundaries are so amorphous that, in practice, the persecutor does not consider it a group.”). To the extent that Carasso-Gonzalez now argues that he belongs to a particular social group of “individuals in Mexico with severe and chronic mental 2 illness who exhibit erratic behavior,” we find this argument unexhausted because the additional modifier (“who exhibit erratic behavior”) substantively changes the boundaries of the group proposed by Carasso-Gonzalez. See Barron v. Ashcroft, 358 F.3d 674, 678 (9th Cir. 2004). Likewise, we also find that the BIA did not err by failing to apply the standard under Barajas-Romero v. Lynch, 846 F.3d 351, 358–60 (9th Cir. 2017). Although the BIA’s decision summarily cited cases that relied on the “one central reason” standard that this court rejected in Barajas-Romero, the agency’s denial of Carasso-Gonzalez’s withholding claim did not turn ...
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