NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION File Name: 18a0490n.06 Case No. 18-3106 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Oct 02, 2018 MARIA DE LA LUZ GALLEGOS-ALVAREZ; ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk JOVANI JIMENEZ-GALLEGOS; MARIO ) EZEQUIEL GALLEGOS ALVAREZ, ) ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW Petitioners, ) FROM THE UNITED STATES ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION v. ) APPEALS ) JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS, III, Attorney ) General, ) ) OPINION Respondent. ) BEFORE: COLE, Chief Judge; WHITE and NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judges. COLE, Chief Judge. Maria De La Luz Gallegos-Alvarez, a forty-year-old native and citizen of Mexico, entered the United States without inspection in February 2014, along with her adult son Mario and minor son Jovani. The Gallegos family1 now petitions for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming an immigration judge’s denial of their applications for asylum, request for withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). The BIA found that Maria Gallegos-Alvarez (“Gallegos”) had not 1 Maria Gallegos-Alvarez’s minor son, Jovani, is a derivative beneficiary of his mother’s asylum application. See Akhtar v. Gonzales, 406 F.3d 399, 406 (6th Cir. 2005) (“Under 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(3)(A), a ‘child’ accompanying, or following to join, a parent who is granted asylum may be granted derivative asylum by virtue of his or her parent’s status as a refugee.”). Mario, on the other hand, filed a separate asylum application “based on incidents that happened to his mother” and “fear[ed] persecution on account of his relationship to his mother.” Mario and his mother’s cases were consolidated, so for ease of reference, the court will refer only to Maria Gallegos-Alvarez’s petition. Case No. 18-3106, Gallegos-Alvarez v. Sessions shown that she had a well-founded fear of persecution based on the fact that she was an honest former law enforcement agent who would not return to work. Because the BIA’s decision was supported by substantial evidence, we deny Gallegos’s petition for review. I. BACKGROUND A. Factual Background Gallegos was born in Mexico in 1977. Between 2005 and 2012, Gallegos and her two sons lived in the United States without lawful status, but returned to their hometown in Jalisco, Mexico in 2012. After returning to Jalisco, Gallegos joined the local police force in January 2013. According to Gallegos, she observed wide-spread corruption during her time as a police officer. On one occasion, Gallegos was involved in the arrest of an individual who “was in possession of a firearm of high caliber.” Gallegos learned that the individual was a man who worked for “Fidel,” the leader of a narco-trafficking gang known as La Plaza. Shortly after the man’s arrest, Fidel spoke with the head of the police force, Edward Navarro, who released the man to Fidel in exchange for 3500 pesos. On another occasion, while on-duty and providing security at a dance ranch, Gallegos’s partner, Officer Refugio, introduced her to Fidel. Gallegos testified that during the course of this conversation, Fidel and Officer Refugio plotted to have another officer, David ...
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