NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 19 2021
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
MARIELA CHAVEZ RAMOS; CINTHIA No. 20-70856
GUADALUPE HERNANDEZ CHAVEZ;
BRAYAN CHAVEZ RAMOS; KAMILA Agency Nos. A209-163-662
GONZALEZ CHAVEZ, A209-163-663
A209-163-664
Petitioners, A209-163-665
v.
MEMORANDUM*
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,
Respondent.
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Submitted May 11, 2021**
San Francisco, California
Before: WALLACE and COLLINS, Circuit Judges, and RAKOFF,*** District
Judge.
*
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 Jed S. Rakoff, United States District Judge for the
Southern District of New York, sitting by designation.
Mariela Chavez Ramos, a native citizen of Mexico, petitions for review of the
Board of Immigration Appeals’ (Board) decision affirming the Immigration Judge’s
(IJ) denial of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief pursuant
to the Convention Against Torture (CAT). She also challenges the denial of her
minor children’s derivative applications. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C.
§ 1252. We deny the petition.
I.
Chavez Ramos asserts that the Knights Templar extorted and attempted to
recruit her husband, Juan Ramon Gonzalez Alcantar.1 She also believes the cartel
members murdered him when he refused. She alleges that two cartel members told
her that they would not have killed her husband if he had cooperated with them. The
local authorities provided protection to her and her minor children for a period of
time after Gonzalez Alcantar’s death. Chavez Ramos did not ask for additional
protection after the police presence tapered off. Due to the cartel’s continued
crossings across her family’s ranch, Chavez Ramos and her children came to the
United States and applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT relief upon
1
Gonzalez Alcantar was not legally Chavez Ramos’s husband because they were
not formally married, although she refers to him as her husband at points during her
testimony before the IJ. Regardless, the IJ and the Board (collectively, the Agency)
accepted that Gonzalez Alcantar was Chavez Ramos’s husband, so we do the same.
Gonzalez Alcantar’s name is also spelled one of two ways throughout the record:
Gonzalez Elcontar and Gonzalez Alcantar. We have chosen to use the latter because
it was used on official records from Mexico.
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entry at the border. Chavez Ramos’s children are derivative applicants, and their
applications are identical and affixed to their mother’s application.
Before the Agency, Chavez Ramos contended she belongs to one of the
following particular social groups: (1) the family of her late husband; (2) single
women without familial protection; or (3) single women in Mexico without familial
protection who have refused to cooperate with cartels. Chavez Ramos testified
before the IJ that she did not believe she could safely relocate to another part of
Mexico because her other family members could not house her, and she would not
be able to get a job where they lived. The IJ found Chavez Ramos sufficiently
credible but denied her and her children’s applications.
The IJ held that Chavez Ramos’s first proposed particular social group was
cognizable and agreed that she was a member of the Gonzalez Alcantar’s family, but
the IJ determined that Chavez Ramos failed to show a nexus between her proposed
particular social group and the alleged harm. The IJ also held that Chavez Ramos
had failed to establish past persecution against her and her children or an objectively
reasonable fear of future persecution from the Knights Templar if the family returned
to Mexico. The Board affirmed. We hold that substantial evidence supports the
Agency’s conclusions.
II.
First, substantial evidence supports the Agency’s conclusion that Chavez
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Ramos and her children did not suffer past persecution from the Knights Templar
because the alleged harm happened to Gonzalez Alcantar rather than the family as
whole. See Baballah v. Ashcroft, 367 F.3d 1067, 1074–76 (9th Cir. 2004)
(considering evidence of violence against a family member where it “add[ed]
additional strength to [petitioner’s] claim of past persecution because it
demonstrated that the danger threatened by the [alleged persecutors’] menacing
behavior [against petitioner] was real”). Chavez Ramos also does not allege that she
or her children were directly threatened or extorted by the Knights Templar. Instead,
she relies upon a single comment from two individuals she contends belonged to the
Knights Templar as to why Gonzalez Alcantar was targeted.
We hold that this comment was more akin to a declaration rather than a threat;
even if it was a threat, it was unfulfilled. See Lim v. I.N.S., 224 F.3d 929, 936 (9th
Cir. 2000) (observing that unfulfilled threats, standing alone, “constitute past
persecution in only a small category of cases, and only when the threats are so
menacing as to cause significant actual suffering or harm.”) (citation and quotation
marks omitted). This alleged interaction, therefore, does not compel a finding of
past persecution. See Ghaly v. I.N.S., 58 F.3d 1425, 1431 (9th Cir. 1995)
(“[P]ersecution is an extreme concept that does not include every sort of treatment
our society regards as offensive.”) (citation and quotation marks omitted). In
addition, the cartel’s use of the ranch to cross to other parts of town does not rise to
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the level of persecution because Chavez Ramos did not allege confrontations with
the cartel members during their crossings beyond the single interaction. Finally,
Chavez Ramos admitted that neither she nor her children had personally suffered
harm in Mexico.
Second, substantial evidence supports the Agency’s conclusion that Chavez
Ramos failed to establish a well-founded fear of future persecution from the Knights
Templar because she did not present evidence that she or her children would face a
reasonable possibility of persecution if returned to Mexico. Her fears, therefore,
were not objectively reasonable.2 The cartel members’ sole interest after Gonzalez
Alcantar’s death appears to have been driving through the Chavez Ramos ranch in
Los Olivos. Moreover, Chavez Ramos failed to identify a specific harm if she and
her children are returned to Mexico. She also did not explain what risk she faces in
Mexico because of Gonzalez Alcantar’s death. Therefore, the Agency correctly held
that Chavez Ramos and her children do not have an objectively reasonable fear. See
Nagoulko v. I.N.S., 333 F.3d 1012, 1018 (9th Cir. 2003) (crediting petitioner’s
subjective fear but concluding it was “too speculative” and, thus, “not objectively
reasonable under the circumstances of this case”). In the end, the Agency properly
rejected Chavez Ramos’s asylum and withholding of removal claims. She failed to
2
We do not address Chavez Ramos’s newly claimed fears for her daughters because
they were not raised before the Agency.
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establish either past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution. She
and her children, therefore, are not eligible for asylum or withholding of removal.
Third, Chavez Ramos asserts that she and her children established a clear
probability that the Knights Templar would torture her and her children if they were
forced to return to Mexico, and Chavez Ramos insists the Mexican government, in
general, is conspiring with cartels. We hold there is substantial evidence to support
the Agency’s holding that Chavez Ramos failed to prove a clear probability of torture
or government acquiescence, so that she and her children are not entitled to CAT
relief. As an initial matter, we observe that Chavez Ramos has not demonstrated
government acquiescence to her hypothetical future torture. Chavez Ramos and her
children received police protection shortly after Gonzalez Alcantar’s death, and
there is no evidence that the local police force would not have resumed their presence
to protect her and her children if she had informed them that she felt threatened. This
situation is, therefore, markedly different from other cases where we found
government acquiescence. See, e.g., Xochihua-Jaimes v. Barr, 962 F.3d 1175,
1185–86 (9th Cir. 2020); see also 8 C.F.R. § 208.18(a)(7) (government acquiescence
“requires that the public official, prior to the activity constituting torture, have
awareness of such activity and thereafter breach his or her legal responsibility to
intervene to prevent such activity”).
In addition, the Board correctly concluded that Chavez Ramos’s evidence did
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not demonstrate past harm “specifically directed” at her and that she, instead, relied
on only a “generalized and speculative” fear of future harm. Chavez Ramos’s
reliance on generalized country conditions does not compel the conclusion that she
“would face any particular threat of torture beyond that of which all citizens of
[Mexico] are at risk.” See Dhital v. Mukasey, 532 F.3d 1044, 1051–52 (9th Cir.
2008). Ultimately, substantial evidence supports the Board’s determination that
Chavez Ramos failed to establish a clear probability of torture by, or with the
acquiescence or willful blindness of, a government official.
Finally, we hold that the Agency did not err by considering Chavez Ramos’s
minor children’s applications as derivative of their mother’s application. Chavez
Ramos’s children’s claims are derivatives of Chavez Ramos’s claims, and the
question was conceded by her counsel before the IJ. The children’s paperwork was
comprised solely of separate cover pages that were then attached to their mother’s
application, so that they do not contain independent information. Insofar as Chavez
Ramos’s daughters’ claims rely on distinct proposed particular social groups raised
for the first time in this court, we cannot consider them. See Alanniz v. Barr, 924
F.3d 1061, 1069 (9th Cir. 2019). Any evidence introduced on appeal to support the
belated, independent claims of the children is extra-record evidence. See 8 U.S.C. §
1252(b)(4)(A).
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III.
We hold that substantial evidence supports the Agency’s conclusion that
Chavez Ramos and her children are not eligible for asylum, withholding of removal,
or CAT relief. We conclude that the Agency did not err by considering the children’s
applications as derivative of their mother’s application.
DENIED.
8