Filed: Oct. 27, 2020
Latest Update: Oct. 27, 2020
Summary: 18-273 M.M.M. v. Barr BIA Wright, IJ A206 808 173/174 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT SUMMARY ORDER RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE N
Summary: 18-273 M.M.M. v. Barr BIA Wright, IJ A206 808 173/174 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT SUMMARY ORDER RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NO..
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18-273
M.M.M. v. Barr
BIA
Wright, IJ
A206 808 173/174
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER
FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF
APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER
IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN
ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY
ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United
States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York,
on the 27th day of October, two thousand twenty.
PRESENT:
JOSEPH F. BIANCO,
WILLIAM J. NARDINI,
Circuit Judges.*
_____________________________________
M.M.M., E.M.S.,
Petitioners,
v. 18-273
NAC
WILLIAM P. BARR, UNITED STATES
ATTORNEY GENERAL,
Respondent. 1
_____________________________________
* Circuit Judge Peter W. Hall, originally a member of the panel,
is currently unavailable, and the petition is being adjudicated by
the two available members of the panel, who are in agreement.
See 2d Cir. IOP E(b).
1 The Clerk of Court is directed to amend the caption as indicated
above.
1
FOR PETITIONERS: Richard Mancino, Shaimaa M. Hussein,
Elizabeth L. Dunn, Matthew R. Dollan,
Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, New
York, NY; Jennifer H. Kim, Caitlin
Miner-Le Grand, City Bar Justice
Center, New York, NY.
FOR RESPONDENT: Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Acting
Assistant Attorney General; Stephen
J. Flynn, Assistant Director; Robert
Michael Stalzer, Trial Attorney,
Office of Immigration Litigation,
United States Department of Justice,
Washington, DC.
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, it is hereby ORDERED, ADJUDGED,
AND DECREED that this petition for review of a decision of
the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) is DENIED.
Petitioners 2 M.M.M. and E.M.S., natives and citizens of
El Salvador, seek review of a January 23, 2018, decision of
the BIA affirming an October 5, 2015, decision of an
Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denying M.M.M.’s application for
asylum and withholding of removal.3 In re M.M.M. and E.M.S.,
Nos. A206 808 173/174 (B.I.A. Jan. 23, 2018), aff’g No. A206
808 173/174 (Immig. Ct. N.Y. City Oct. 5, 2015). We assume
the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and
2 We grant the unopposed motion to abbreviate petitioners’ names
pursuant to Second Circuit Local Rule 27.1(j).
3 We do not review M.M.M.’s claim for relief under the Convention
Against Torture, a legally distinct claim which she waived by
failing to argue it in her opening brief. See Yueqing Zhang v.
Gonzales, 426 F.3d 540, 541 n.1 (2d Cir. 2005).
2
procedural history.
Under the circumstances of this case, we review the IJ’s
decision as modified by the BIA, that is, minus the grounds
that the BIA did not reach. See Xue Hong Yang v. U.S. Dep’t
of Justice, 426 F.3d 520, 522 (2d Cir. 2005). We therefore
review only (1) the agency’s conclusion that M.M.M. failed to
establish that her past persecution was on account of her
membership in a particular social group, and (2) the agency’s
denial of humanitarian asylum.4 The applicable standards of
review are well established. Yanqin Weng v. Holder,
562 F.3d
510, 513 (2d Cir. 2009) (reviewing questions of law de novo
and findings of fact for substantial evidence). We treat
administrative findings of fact as conclusive “unless any
reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the
contrary.” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B).
Under this deferential standard, we uphold the agency’s
decision. The IJ found that M.M.M. suffered from severe
4In a previous decision, the BIA denied M.M.M.’s petition for lack
of evidence that the Salvadoran government was unwilling or unable
to protect her. This Court remanded to the BIA for further
consideration of country conditions evidence. 696 F. App’x 12 (2d
Cir. 2017). The BIA denied relief on the independent ground that
M.M.M. failed to establish past persecution, so we do not here
consider the question of whether El Salvador is able or willing to
protect her.
3
domestic violence over a prolonged period, enduring “fifteen
years of continued abuse” that rose to the level of
persecution. Certified Administrative Record (“CAR”) at 98.
But the IJ and the BIA determined that this persecution was
not on account of M.M.M.’s membership in the group of
“Salvadoran women in a domestic relationship who are unable
to leave,” 5 because she was able to leave. CAR at 3, 99. The
IJ noted M.M.M.’s testimony that she left her husband in
December 2005 after he abused her and her son, moving out to
live elsewhere. In 2006, she filed a complaint with the police
and enlisted the Salvadoran court system to obtain custody of
her children and an order of protection against her husband.
Despite her husband’s harassment of her at her workplace, she
did not return to live with him, and he never physically or
sexually assaulted her thereafter. M.M.M.’s husband moved to
the United States in 2006 and it does not appear that he has
5
At the time petitioners applied for asylum, “married women . . .
who are unable to leave their relationship” could establish
membership in a particular social group based on their individual
circumstances. Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26 I. & N. Dec. 388, 389 (B.I.A.
2014). The Attorney General has since overturned Matter of A-R-C-
G- and held that “[g]enerally, claims by aliens pertaining to
domestic violence or gang violence perpetrated by non-governmental
actors will not qualify for asylum.” Matter of A-B-, 27 I. & N.
Dec. 316, 320 (A.G. 2018). We limit our review to the reasons given
by the BIA under the regulations then in effect. See Lin Zhong v.
U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 480 F.3d 104, 117 (2d Cir. 2007).
4
returned to El Salvador since.
The IJ concluded that M.M.M. “was able to leave the
abusive relationship” and therefore “she did not establish
that she was persecuted on account of her membership in a
particular social group.” CAR at 99. The BIA affirmed on this
basis, finding that M.M.M. “was able to leave her husband.”
CAR at 4. Thus, the BIA found that she also failed to
establish her membership in her second proposed social group:
Salvadoran women who are viewed as property by virtue of their
position in a domestic relationship. The BIA concluded that
because M.M.M. was able to leave her husband, she was “no
longer in a ‘domestic relationship’ with him,” and therefore
could not be viewed as his property.6 CAR at 4.
There is no clear error in the agency’s factual
determination that M.M.M. was able to leave her husband,
“based on the particular facts and evidence” of her claim,
and so substantial evidence supports its overall
determination that she falls outside the class of women unable
to leave an abusive relationship. See Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26
6 Because M.M.M. did not establish past persecution on account of
a protected ground, the BIA did not apply the presumption that
M.M.M. had a well-founded fear of future persecution. See 8 C.F.R.
§ 1208.13(b)(1).
5
I. & N. Dec. at 395. M.M.M. testified that she left her
husband for good in December 2005. Through the Salvadoran
courts, she obtained custody of her children and a protective
order, and then lived apart from her husband. She reported
that he moved to the United States shortly thereafter in 2006.
Although M.M.M. claims that her husband harassed her in the
period before he left for the United States, she did not
report any subsequent persecution after leaving her husband,
and she has remained apart from him ever since. It was
approximately eight years later, in 2014, when she came to
the United States and eventually sought asylum.
Similar evidence supports the agency’s rejection of
M.M.M.’s membership in a second proposed social group. The
BIA’s denial of this claim follows from the recognition that
M.M.M.’s exit from her domestic relationship and beginning of
her new life was inconsistent with the claim that she was
viewed by Salvadoran society as her husband’s “property.”
Accordingly, substantial evidence supports the agency’s
conclusion that M.M.M. did not establish her membership in
this particular social group.
M.M.M. argues that, in reaching these conclusions, the
agency failed to consider the facts at the time of
6
persecution. She contends that her success in permanently
leaving her husband in 2005 has no bearing on her status in
the fifteen preceding years, when she was in a relationship
characterized by violence and abuse. In support, she points
to other contexts in which a subsequent change in status does
not disqualify an applicant from membership in a particular
social group. See Kone v. Holder, 596 F.3d 141, 152 (2d Cir.
2010) (suggesting that an adult woman could obtain asylum
based on female genital mutilation inflicted on her as a
child); Jorge-Tzoc v. Gonzales,
435 F.3d 146, 147-48 (2d Cir.
2006) (assessing past persecution of adult applicant that
occurred when applicant was seven years old, over a decade
before he fled his country).
These precedents are inapposite. The social groups
involved in the cases M.M.M. cites are defined by essential
characteristics, such as age, gender, and tribal group, not
by the extrinsic condition of being unable to leave a domestic
relationship or the social status of marital subjugation. In
both Kone and Jorge-Tzoc, adult applicants petitioned for
asylum based on targeted violence they suffered as children.
Subsequent maturation did not change the fact that each
applicant was a child victim during the relevant time period.
7
Here, by contrast, M.M.M.’s apparent ability to leave her
husband in 2005, without reprisal over the ensuing years,
excludes her from the particular social group of married women
who cannot leave their abusive husbands, or whom Salvadoran
society views as “property.”
We likewise uphold the agency’s determination denying
humanitarian asylum. Because M.M.M. did not establish past
persecution on account of a protected ground, she had to
demonstrate “compelling reasons for being unwilling or unable
to return to the country arising out of the severity” of her
abuse or “a reasonable possibility that . . . she may suffer
other serious harm upon removal to that country.” 8 C.F.R.
§ 1208.13(b)(1)(iii). As the IJ and the BIA determined, the
abuse suffered by M.M.M. did not cause continuing pain or
discomfort, or otherwise rise to the level of atrocious
persecution. See Matter of S-A-K- & H-A-H-, 24 I. & N. Dec.
464, 465-66 (B.I.A. 2008) (granting humanitarian asylum for
victims of female genital mutilation). Nor did M.M.M.
demonstrate a “reasonable possibility” that she will
experience “other serious harm” in El Salvador, given that
she lived there peacefully and without abuse for seven years
after her husband left for the United States. CAR at 103-04.
8
Finding the agency’s decision “supported by reasonable,
substantial, and probative evidence in the record,” we
affirm. Jalloh v. Gonzales, 498 F.3d 148, 151 (2d Cir. 2007)
(brackets omitted).
For the foregoing reasons, the petition for review is
DENIED. All pending motions and applications are DENIED and
stays VACATED.
FOR THE COURT:
Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe,
Clerk of Court
9
