Case Explained: BRANDON CUELLAR CABRERA V. TODD BLANCHE

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-13

The Ninth Circuit denied Brandon Isaias Cuellar Cabrera’s petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision affirming the denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The court held that the petitioner forfeited his arguments challenging the BIA’s determinations regarding a proposed particular social group of “Salvadoran youths who are resistant to gang recruitment,” as well as his ineligibility for withholding of removal and CAT protection, because his opening brief failed to meaningfully challenge these specific findings. Regarding his asylum claim based on a second proposed group of “immediate family members of Salvadoran youth who are resistant to gang recruitment,” the court applied the substantial evidence standard to review the agency’s factual findings regarding the persecutor’s motive. The court concluded that the record did not compel a contrary conclusion to the BIA’s finding that the petitioner was threatened because the gang sought to recruit him, rather than due to his membership in the proposed family group. Citing *Rodriguez-Zuniga v. Garland*, the court determined that the petitioner failed to demonstrate that his membership in the particular social group was “one central reason” for the harm he feared, as the gang’s targeting of him and his brothers was an instrumentality for general recruitment efforts rather than persecution based on protected characteristics. Consequently, the petition is denied, and the petitioner’s temporary stay of removal will dissolve upon the issuance of the mandate.

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