NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 20a0320n.06 Case No. 19-3988 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Jun 03, 2020 MIGUEL VILLA-NAJERA, ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk ) Petitioner, ) ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW v. ) FROM THE UNITED STATES ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, ) APPEALS Respondent. ) BEFORE: CLAY, ROGERS, and DONALD, Circuit Judges BERNICE BOUIE DONALD, Circuit Judge. Miguel Villa-Najera, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions for review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his application for withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). Villa-Najera asserts that the denial of his application is not supported by substantial evidence and that the IJ erred by limiting the testimony of his expert witness and finding him not credible. Because Villa-Najera has failed to meet his burden of proof for withholding of removal and protection under the CAT, we DENY his petition. I. Villa-Najera first entered the United States with his family in 1992, at the age of sixteen, after leaving his home in Acapulco, Mexico. He has lived in the United States for twenty-seven Case No. 19-3988, Villa-Najera v. Barr years and has five children who are United States citizens. Villa-Najera has been convicted of several criminal offenses in the United States and has previously been removed to Mexico twice, first following a conviction for statutory rape and then for illegal re-entry. In 2014, after Villa-Najera served a six-month sentence for illegal re-entry, he was deported to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.1 From there, Villa-Najera traveled to Matamoros, where he was kidnapped by members of the “New Generation” cartel at the bus station. The cartel drove Villa- Najera to an empty house where they took photos of him, obtained the address of his family’s house in Acapulco, and eventually asked him to work for them in extortion and selling drugs because he had no money to pay them. After Villa-Najera refused to work for the cartel, he was struck with the back of a rifle and stabbed in his left shoulder. On the fifth day of his captivity, an elderly woman arrived at the house to help care for Villa-Najera’s wounds. The woman brought Villa-Najera food for the first time and took an interest in him because of his refusal to work for the cartel. When she came back on the eleventh day, after the cartel member guarding Villa-Najera fell asleep, she untied him and drove him to safety. Subsequent to Villa-Najera’s escape, members of the cartel took physical possession of Villa-Najera’s family’s home in Acapulco, which was being rented out by Villa-Najera’s sister, and denied the renters access to it. After his escape, Villa-Najera once again illegally re-entered the United States, and on December 10, 2018, was arrested for and later convicted of domestic violence in Ohio. On February 21, 2019, after serving his eighty-three-day sentence, ICE reinstated his prior order of removal. The asylum office ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals