Background
Catarina Perez-Raymundo, an indigenous person from Guatemala, entered the United States unlawfully in two thousand and seventeen with her daughter. During removal proceedings, she claimed past persecution by a private actor in Guatemala and sought asylum and withholding of removal. The Immigration Judge found her credible but ruled she failed to prove government involvement or inability to control the private actor. The judge also determined that internal relocation within Guatemala was viable and reasonable. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed both findings.
The court’s reasoning
The court explained that a petitioner’s ability to relocate provides an independent basis for rejecting asylum and withholding-of-removal claims. Because an applicant cannot qualify for relief if she can avoid persecution by relocating within her home country, the petitioner must challenge this specific finding to preserve it for review. Perez-Raymundo did not challenge the relocation determination in her initial brief or in a reply brief after the government pointed out the oversight. Consequently, the court was required to affirm the agency’s decision based on this unchallenged independent basis.
A petitioner’s ability to relocate provides an independent basis for rejecting . . . asylum and withholding-of-removal claims because an applicant cannot qualify for either asylum or withholding of removal if she can avoid persecution by relocating within her home country.
Cristales-de Linares v. Bondi, 161 F.4th 401, 413 (2025)
What it means going forward
This decision reinforces the requirement that petitioners must explicitly challenge every independent ground for an agency’s adverse decision. It ensures that if a petitioner fails to contest a valid relocation finding, the court will affirm the denial of relief without addressing other potential arguments.
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