Summary
The Tenth Circuit granted Modesta Ramos Ramos’s petition for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals decision vacating an immigration judge’s grant of asylum. The court held that the BIA misapplied the clear-error standard when reviewing the IJ’s factual findings and that, under the circumstances, further agency proceedings would be futile. The court vacated the BIA’s June 2023 order and remanded with instructions to reinstate the IJ’s asylum grant.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the BIA violated 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(3)(i) by reviewing the IJ's factual findings concerning nexus, internal relocation, and governmental protection more like de novo review than clear-error review.
- Whether the record compelled the conclusion that the IJ's findings concerning nexus, internal relocation, and the Honduran government's ability or willingness to protect Ramos were permissible and not clearly erroneous.
- Whether further remand to the BIA was necessary under ordinary agency-remand principles or would be futile.
- Whether one of Ramos's two petitions for review provided jurisdiction despite uncertainty concerning which agency order was the final order of removal.
Holdings
- The BIA violated 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(3)(i) by effectively reweighing the evidence and conducting de novo factfinding rather than determining whether the IJ's nexus finding was clearly erroneous.
- The BIA violated 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(3)(i) by rejecting the IJ's internal-relocation finding through factual reweighing and an inaccurate characterization of the record.
- The BIA violated 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(3)(i) by selectively crediting some evidence and discounting other evidence in reviewing the IJ's finding that the Honduran government was unable or unwilling to protect Ramos.
- Further remand was unnecessary because application of the correct clear-error principles could lead only to the conclusion that the IJ's findings were permissible; remand would therefore be futile.
- At least one of Ramos's two petitions for review enabled review of the BIA's June 2023 order because each petition was timely under one of the possible final-order scenarios, and the government did not dispute that the second petition permitted review.
Key quotations
“This standard plainly does not entitle a reviewing court to reverse the finding of the trier of fact simply because it is convinced that it would have decided the case differently.” (17-18)
“If the [factfinder]’s account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, the [appellate body] may not reverse it even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently.” (18)
“Applying the law on clear-error review here, the record permits only one conclusion: that each of the IJ’s three findings at issue was permissible, and thus not clearly erroneous.” (37-38)
“We GRANT the petition for review, VACATE the BIA’s June 2023 order, and REMAND with instructions to reinstate the IJ’s April 2019 grant of asylum.” (44)
Factual background
Ramos, a Honduran citizen, was threatened by Jonis Erco after her partner, Arturo Robles, was murdered by gang-affiliated individuals. The threats were directed at Ramos and her two younger children because of their relationship to Robles, and Honduran police did not investigate the murder or respond meaningfully to Ramos's reports of threats. Ramos and her children entered the United States in 2014, and the IJ found that the Honduran government could not or would not protect them and that they could not safely relocate within Honduras.
Procedural history
An immigration judge granted asylum to Modesta Ramos Ramos and her two sons in 2014. The Board of Immigration Appeals reversed and remanded in 2015 for additional findings; after a 2019 hearing, the immigration judge again granted asylum. In June 2023, the BIA reversed again, finding clearly erroneous the immigration judge's findings concerning nexus, internal relocation, and the Honduran government's ability or willingness to protect Ramos. Ramos filed two petitions for review, one after the 2023 BIA order and one after a March 2024 final removal order entered after she withdrew her CAT claim. The Tenth Circuit held that at least one petition permitted review, rejected the government's request for a further remand, and ordered reinstatement of the 2019 asylum grant.
Remand instructions
The court granted the petitions for review, vacated the BIA's June 2023 order, and remanded to the BIA with instructions to reinstate the IJ's April 2019 order granting asylum. The government's motion to remand was denied as moot.