NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 22a0097n.06 Case No. 21-3092 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Mar 03, 2022 ) BASILIO BARCENAS-SALES, DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk ) Petitioner, ) ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW v. ) FROM THE UNITED STATES ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, ) APPEALS Respondent. ) ) Before: McKEAGUE, BUSH, and READLER, Circuit Judges. CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge. Basilio Barcenas-Sales is scheduled to be deported to Mexico, his home country. To avoid that result, Barcenas-Sales seeks review of a Board of Immigration Appeals decision denying his application for withholding of removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A). According to Barcenas-Sales, the Board erred in assessing his risk of future persecution at the hands of drug cartels. But substantial evidence supports the Board’s decision. And as the Board otherwise made no error in measuring Barcenas-Sales’s risk of future persecution, we deny his petition. BACKGROUND Barcenas-Sales, a Mexican citizen, entered the United States illegally and remained in the country for nearly two decades. Several run-ins with law enforcement brought Barcenas-Sales to the attention of the Department of Homeland Security, which instituted removal proceedings against him. Case No. 21-3092, Barcenas-Sales v. Garland During those proceedings, Barcenas-Sales sought withholding of removal, a remedy available to those who would suffer persecution upon return to their home country due to their membership in a protected group. 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A). Barcenas-Sales asserted that, as a member of a family with two members murdered by cartels, his safety would be at risk if he returned to Mexico. To further the point, Barcenas-Sales submitted a variety of secondary sources demonstrating the dangerous state of affairs in Mexico. Those materials included a State Department report on human rights in Mexico, two news stories about crime in the country, and several third-party reports about human rights violations there. In many respects, Barcenas-Sales’s evidence recognized the vast scope of private criminal activity in the country. But those materials also highlighted ongoing government efforts to address cartel violence. One document described a recent reduction in violence as well as Mexico’s successes in combatting the cartels. A State Department report described how the Mexican government had “revamped” its efforts to combat cartel abductions by arresting and indicting hundreds of individuals in one year. And an article from the Associated Press discussed the Mexican government’s “crackdown on drugs.” After considering these submissions, the Immigration Judge (IJ) overseeing Barcenas- Sales’s removal proceeding denied his request for relief. In the IJ’s view, Barcenas-Sales failed to demonstrate a clear probability of future persecution at the hands of a cartel. That was so, the IJ concluded, both because Barcenas-Sales lacked evidence of past persecution and because he had little evidence that present-day conditions threatened his safety specifically. On that latter point, the IJ deemed evidence that cartels had targeted his family speculative, noting that his family continued to reside in Mexico “without harm.” Much the same was true as to evidence concerning Mexico’s general conditions. Acknowledging Mexico …
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