Case: 18-60236 Document: 00515377150 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/09/2020 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit FILED No. 18-60236 April 9, 2020 Lyle W. Cayce MARISELA INESTROZA-ANTONELLI, Clerk Petitioner v. WILLIAM P. BARR, U. S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Before KING, JONES, and DENNIS, Circuit Judges. JAMES L. DENNIS, Circuit Judge: Marisela Inestroza-Antonelli, a native Honduran citizen, filed a motion to reopen her removal proceedings on the basis of changed country conditions in Honduras. She relied in part on the alleged dismantling of institutional protections for women against gender-based violence following a 2009 military coup. Without addressing the coup, the BIA found that any change in gender- based violence was incremental or incidental and not material. Because this conclusion is not supported by the record, we grant the petition and remand. I. In 2005, Inestroza-Antonelli failed to appear for an immigration hearing, and the Immigration Judge (IJ) ordered her removed in absentia as an alien Case: 18-60236 Document: 00515377150 Page: 2 Date Filed: 04/09/2020 No. 18-60236 present in the United States without having been admitted or paroled. Inestroza-Antonelli was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March 2007 and released under an order of supervision. She was granted stays of removal until June 23, 2017, when her application for a stay was denied. On July 26, 2017, Inestroza-Antonelli filed a motion to reopen her removal proceedings. She argued that the normal time limit for filing a motion to reopen should be excused because she could show changed country conditions in Honduras since the time of her original hearing—specifically, a 263.4 percent increase in violence against women since 2005. She submitted a number of documents in support of her motion, including expert declarations, news articles, and reports demonstrating the elimination of systemic protections for women against gender-based violence following a 2009 military coup in Honduras. Specifically, Inestroza-Antonelli introduced evidence of the following changes in Honduras since the coup: (1) the Gender Unit of the Honduran National Police, established between 2004 and 2005, has been restricted in its operations, and access to the Unit is now limited or nonexistent; (2) the power of the Municipal Offices for Women to address domestic violence has been severely diluted, and officials have been removed from their positions for responding to women’s needs, especially those related to domestic violence; (3) institutional actors have targeted women for violence, including sexual violence, and threatened the legal status of over 5,000 nongovernmental women’s, feminist, and human rights organizations that have opposed the post-coup government’s policies; (4) the rate of homicides of women more than doubled in the year after the coup and has continued to steadily increase, ultimately becoming the second highest cause of death for women of reproductive age; and (5) in 2014, the status of the National Institute for Women was downgraded and other resources for female victims of violence 2 Case: 18-60236 Document: 00515377150 ...
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