United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 20-1718 MARIO RENE LOPEZ TROCHE, Petitioner, v. MERRICK B. GARLAND,* UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS Before Kayatta and Barron, Circuit Judges. Saris, District Judge. Elena Noureddine, with whom Irene C. Friedel and PAIR Project were on brief, for petitioner. Jennifer A. Bowen, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, with whom Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, and Anthony C. Payne, Assistant Director, Office of Immigration Litigation, were on brief, for respondent. October 18, 2021 * Pursuant to Fed. R. App. P. 43(c)(2), Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has been substituted for former Attorney General William P. Barr as the respondent. Of the District of Massachusetts, sitting by designation. BARRON, Circuit Judge. Mario Rene Lopez Troche ("Lopez Troche"), a native and citizen of Honduras, petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") that affirms the denial of his application for withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture ("CAT"). We vacate and remand. I. Lopez Troche came to the United States in 1988. He was removed from this country in 1992. He re-entered the United States shortly thereafter. He has lived here since 1993 or 1994. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security detained Lopez Troche and reinstated his removal order on February 6, 2013. While detained at the Suffolk County House of Correction in Boston, Massachusetts, Lopez Troche asked to meet with an asylum officer. The asylum officer then conducted what we will refer to as a "reasonable fear" interview. Lopez Troche told the asylum officer that he was gay and living with HIV. He further claimed that, on account of his sexual orientation and from a young age, "he was repeatedly harassed, abused and beaten by members of his community." He said that he had been abused and faced attempted stoning and frequent beating because of his sexual orientation and that this abuse was exacerbated by his dressing as a woman for shows at clubs. - 2 - Lopez Troche also told the asylum officer about his relationship in Honduras with a man named Carlos Sota. Lopez Troche told the asylum officer that Sota's family blamed Lopez Troche for Sota's death from AIDS and that they told Lopez Troche that the family would kill him if he did not leave the country. Lopez Troche also told the asylum officer that he thought that Sota's family was responsible for the murder of Lopez Troche's younger brother in 2012, and that, should Lopez Troche return to Honduras, Sota's family would kill him as well. According to the asylum officer's notes of the interview, when Lopez Troche was asked whether he had ever gone to the police to report any of the abuse that he had recounted, he stated: "we complained a few times but nothing happened[;] the police didn't do anything about it." The asylum officer's notes …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals