Axel Perez-Perez v. Pamela Bondi

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Decided: September 18, 2025
• Docket: 25-3194
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 25a0428n.06

No. 25-3194

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT Sep 18, 2025 KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk ) AXEL PEREZ-PEREZ, ) Petitioner, ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW ) v. FROM THE UNITED STATES ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION ) PAMELA BONDI, Attorney General, APPEALS ) Respondent. ) OPINION ) )

Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; BATCHELDER and LARSEN, Circuit Judges.

LARSEN, Circuit Judge. Axel Perez-Perez entered the United States without valid

immigration documents. An immigration judge (IJ) denied his claims for withholding of removal

and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and ordered Perez-Perez removed

from the country. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed. Perez-Perez now petitions

for review. We DENY his petition.

I.

Axel Perez-Perez, a native and citizen of Guatemala, entered the United States illegally in

2016. The Department of Homeland Security served Perez-Perez with a Notice to Appear charging

him with being removable as an alien present in the United States without valid immigration

documents. Perez-Perez conceded removability but applied for relief in the form of withholding

of removal and CAT protection. Perez-Perez testified in support of his applications for relief,

claiming that he feared returning to Guatemala because he would be harmed by members of a

criminal gang. The IJ denied Perez-Perez’s applications for relief and ordered him removed to No. 25-3194, Perez-Perez v. Bondi

Guatemala. Perez-Perez appealed to the BIA. The BIA dismissed his appeal, concluding that

Perez-Perez had waived review of his CAT-protection claim and had failed to establish that the IJ

erred by denying him withholding of removal. Perez-Perez now petitions for review, challenging

only the agency’s decision to deny him withholding of removal.

II.

We review the BIA’s decision as the final agency determination, except that we review the

IJ’s reasoning “[t]o the extent the BIA adopted” it. Khalili v. Holder, 557 F.3d 429, 435 (6th Cir.

2009). The IJ gave two reasons for concluding that Perez-Perez had failed to establish entitlement

to withholding of removal: (1) Perez-Perez was not credible, and (2) Perez-Perez failed to

establish a nexus between his feared harm and his membership in a particular social group.

Before the BIA, Perez-Perez challenged only the adverse credibility determination. He

didn’t challenge the IJ’s nexus determination. The BIA noted the failure, concluding that although

Perez-Perez had broadly referenced nexus in his Notice of Appeal, he failed to “specifically

address[] [the] matter[] in his appellate brief,” so the issue was “waived.” AR 4.

Perez-Perez’s failure to challenge the IJ’s nexus determination before the BIA is fatal to

his petition. Congress has limited our authority to review immigration appeals. See 8 U.S.C.

§ 1252(d). We may review a final order of removal only if “the alien has exhausted all

administrative remedies.” Id. § 1252(d)(1); see also Mazariegos-Rodas v. Garland, 122 F.4th 655,

664 (6th Cir. 2024). To exhaust administrative remedies, the petitioner “must present the specific

issue that [he] seek[s] to raise in court” to the BIA. Singh v. Rosen, 984 F.3d 1142, 1155 (6th Cir.

2021). When, as here, the government has raised the alien’s failure to comply with the exhaustion

requirement, we must enforce it. Mazariegos-Rodas, 122 F.4th at 664. The BIA correctly

concluded that Perez-Perez failed to challenge the nexus determination, so our review of that issue No. 25-3194, Perez-Perez v. Bondi

is foreclosed. Because the IJ’s nexus determination was an independent, dispositive reason to deny

Perez-Perez’s application for withholding of removal, his petition for review fails. See Hih v.

Lynch, 812 F.3d 551, 556 (6th Cir. 2016).

Perez-Perez counters that he raised the nexus issue in his Notice of Appeal. But raising an

issue in a Notice of Appeal is insufficient to preserve it for appeal when the petitioner files a brief

before the BIA. In that circumstance, “the issue must be reasonably developed in the petitioner’s

brief to the BIA.” Khalili, 557 F.3d at 433; see also Cuevas-Nuno v. Barr, 969 F.3d 331, 334 (6th

Cir. 2020) (“We look to the alien’s brief before the BIA to determine which claims the alien

adequately raised before that body.”). Perez-Perez failed to do so. As a result, Perez-Perez has

failed to exhaust his challenges to the IJ’s nexus determination.

***

We DENY the petition for review.