United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________ No. 17-1486 ___________________________ Erick Isabel Ruiz-Garcia lllllllllllllllllllllPetitioner v. Jefferson B. Sessions, III, Attorney General of the United States lllllllllllllllllllllRespondent ____________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals ____________ Submitted: January 8, 2018 Filed: April 27, 2018 [Unpublished] ____________ Before GRUENDER, MELLOY, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges. ____________ PER CURIAM. Erick Isabel Ruiz-Garcia petitions for review of the denial of his application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). In 2014, at the age of fifteen, Ruiz-Garcia entered the United States from his native Guatemala and was detained by a U.S. Border Patrol agent. He was charged in removal proceedings as an alien present in the United States without having been admitted or paroled. See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i). Though he was classified as an unaccompanied alien child, see 6 U.S.C. § 279(g)(2), he was released to the custody of his mother, who was living in Faribault, Minnesota with no immigration status. Eventually, Ruiz-Garcia’s case was referred to an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) for the adjudication of his application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT. Ruiz-Garcia admitted to being present in the United States without having been admitted or paroled but sought relief based on his fear of the persecution and torture that would ensue if he were removed to Guatemala. He testified that he had been approached by members of the Mara 18 gang on three occasions and that each time he was pressured in increasingly violent ways to join them. In the first incident, gang members approached Ruiz-Garcia, shoved him, and told him to join the gang. At a later time, he was beaten after refusing to join. On the third encounter, the gang members told Ruiz-Garcia that he “had to rape a girl within a week” as a form of gang initiation, threatening that he would be killed if he failed to do so. Ruiz-Garcia did not report these incidents to law enforcement because his cousin had been beaten after reporting similar conduct and because he believed the police to be “friendly” with the gang. After hearing the evidence, the IJ found Ruiz-Garcia credible but denied his applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT. The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirmed the IJ’s denial of asylum and withholding of removal, given that Ruiz-Garcia did not show he was a member of “a cognizable particular social group,” but remanded for the IJ to consider evidence and make findings on “whether the Guatemalan government would be willfully blind to [Ruiz-Garcia’s] torture by the Mara 18” for purposes of the CAT. On remand, the IJ reviewed Ruiz-Garcia’s testimony and the country-conditions evidence and found that the Guatemalan government was not likely to acquiesce in the torture of children who resist joining the Mara 18. The BIA agreed with the IJ’s analysis and dismissed the appeal. Ruiz-Garcia now petitions for review on all three grounds: ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals