Glen Antunez-Blanco v. Matthew Whitaker


Case: 17-60537 Document: 00514754290 Page: 1 Date Filed: 12/10/2018 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit No. 17-60537 FILED December 10, 2018 Summary Calendar Lyle W. Cayce Clerk Consolidated with 17-60793 GLEN ANTUNEZ-BLANCO, also known as Carlos Cerrato, Petitioner v. MATTHEW WHITAKER, ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent Petitions for Review of Orders of the Board of Immigration Appeals BIA No. A205 214 949 Before STEWART, Chief Judge, and GRAVES and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: * In consolidated petitions for review, Glen Antunez-Blanco, a native and citizen of Honduras, seeks review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing his appeal of the order of the immigration judge (IJ) denying withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against * Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4. Case: 17-60537 Document: 00514754290 Page: 2 Date Filed: 12/10/2018 No. 17-60537 Cons./w No. 17-60793 Torture (CAT) and the BIA’s denial of his motion to reconsider the dismissal of his appeal. Antunez-Blanco maintains that he is entitled to withholding of removal and CAT relief because he has been persecuted due to his sexual orientation and HIV/AIDS-positive status and fears that he will again suffer this treatment if he repatriates. We generally review only the decision of the BIA, but where, as is the case here, the BIA adopts the IJ’s decision or is affected by the IJ’s reasoning, we review the IJ’s decision as well. See Wang v. Holder, 569 F.3d 531, 536 (5th Cir. 2009). We apply the substantial evidence standard to Antunez-Blanco’s claims that he is entitled to withholding of removal and CAT relief. See Zhang v. Gonzales, 432 F.3d 339, 344 (5th Cir. 2005). Reversal under this standard is not warranted unless we decide “not only that the evidence supports a contrary conclusion, but also that the evidence compels it.” Chen v. Gonzales, 470 F.3d 1131, 1134 (5th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Initially, Antunez-Blanco asserts that the BIA erred by determining that he failed to raise the particular social group of LGBT or AIDS activists before the IJ. This argument fails; he did not raise the issue in his asylum application or during his testimony at the merits hearing. Thus, the BIA was not required to address the issue for the first time on appeal. See Eduard v. Ashcroft, 379 F.3d 182, 195 n.14 (5th Cir. 2004). Antunez-Blanco’s argument that the BIA engaged in improper fact finding when it concluded, in the first instance, that his persecution claim based on the extortion of his family by death squads failed as a matter of law likewise fails. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(3)(iv). The BIA did not make factual determinations in that regard; instead, it concluded, based on this court’s precedent, that economic extortion and actions based on a ...

Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals