Background
Delmy Celina Carrasco-Aguilar, a native and citizen of Honduras, arrived in the United States in December two thousand eighteen. She was charged with removability for being present without admission or parole and applied for asylum and withholding of removal. Carrasco-Aguilar testified that in August two thousand eighteen, armed men with covered faces demanded cell phone minutes from her store. Over the next three months, the men returned regularly, threatened to kill her and her family, and eventually trained pistols on her. She filed a police report in November two thousand eighteen, but the police did not patrol the area as promised. Five days after filing the report, she fled to the United States. The Immigration Judge denied her application, finding her account was not sufficiently extreme to constitute past persecution and that she failed to prove a well-founded fear of future persecution or that relocation within Honduras was unreasonable. The Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed her appeal, agreeing that her account did not constitute past persecution.
The court’s reasoning
The court limited its analysis to the Board’s determination regarding past persecution, reviewing the decision for substantial evidence. The court defined substantial evidence as relevant evidence that a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion. Carrasco-Aguilar relied on Tamara-Gomez v. Gonzales, where the petitioner faced a sustained, organized campaign of intimidation, extortion, and murder by the FARC guerrilla group. The court distinguished this case, noting that Carrasco-Aguilar described repeated theft of cell phone credits without physical harm or deprivation of life’s essentials. The court acknowledged that a different adjudicator might have found past persecution but held that the Board’s contrary conclusion was not one that no reasonable adjudicator could reach. The court also noted that the petitioner did not dispute the Board’s conclusion that she waived the issue of future persecution.
What it means going forward
The denial of the petition affirms the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision, leaving the petitioner without asylum or withholding of removal protection and subject to removal proceedings.