NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 12 2021
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
JOSE ALIRIO ACOSTA-FLORES, No. 20-70724
Petitioner, Agency No. A206-149-728
v.
MEMORANDUM*
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,
Respondent.
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Submitted May 10, 2021**
San Francisco, California
Before: HAWKINS and MILLER, Circuit Judges, and RESTANI,*** Judge.
Jose Alirio Acosta Flores, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions for
review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals affirming an immigration
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
***
The Honorable Jane A. Restani, Judge for the United States Court of
International Trade, sitting by designation.
judge’s denial of withholding of removal. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C.
§ 1252(a), and we deny the petition.
Acosta Flores challenges the Board’s conclusion that his proposed particular
social group of “witnesses of a crime who attempt to assist in the prosecution of a
criminal organization that collaborated with [the] Mexic[an] government” is not
cognizable because it lacks particularity. Whether a particular social group is
cognizable “is a question of law that we review de novo.” Barbosa v. Barr, 926
F.3d 1053, 1059 (9th Cir. 2019).
We agree with the Board: Acosta Flores’s group is amorphous and lacks
definable boundaries. See Aguilar-Osorio v. Garland, 991 F.3d 997, 999 (9th Cir.
2021) (per curiam) (group of “witnesses who . . . could testify against gang
members based upon what they witnessed” lacks particularity (ellipsis in original)).
As the immigration judge explained, the lack of specificity in “[t]he level of
assistance, the level of attempting to assist, and the degree of collaboration that the
criminal organization must have with the Mexican government in order to be
recognized by the society in Mexico” makes the boundaries of Acosta Flores’s
group uncertain.
To be sure, we have held that a group consisting of persons who have
testified against gang members is particular. Henriquez-Rivas v. Holder, 707 F.3d
1081, 1093 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc). But whether a person has testified against a
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gang member “can be easily verified—and thus delimited—through court records
documenting group members’ testimony.” Id. That is not necessarily true of less
formal “assistance” or “attempt[s] to assist” in government prosecution. Because
Acosta Flores “has not provided sufficient evidence that the society in question
would be able to delineate who belongs in the group, and who does not,” we agree
with the Board that his proposed group lacks particularity.
PETITION DENIED.
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