Gante Cornejo v. Bondi

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: April 9, 2025
• Docket: 24-2685
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS APR 9 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

YESENIA GANTE CORNEJO; FIDEL No. 24-2685 MENDOZA GANTE; RAMON Agency Nos. MENDOZA GANTE; YESENIA A209-763-040 MENDOZA GANTE, A209-763-041 A209-763-042 Petitioners, A209-763-043 v. MEMORANDUM* PAMELA BONDI, Attorney General,

Respondent.

On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals

Submitted April 2, 2025** Pasadena, California

Before: GILMAN***, M. SMITH, and VANDYKE, Circuit Judges.

Yesenia Gante Cornejo and her three children, natives and citizens of Mexico,

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable Ronald Lee Gilman, United States Circuit Judge for the Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit, sitting by designation. petition for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA)

affirming a ruling by an Immigration Judge (IJ) that denied their applications for

asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture

(CAT). Gante Cornejo’s minor children are derivative beneficiaries of her petition

for asylum. Only Gante Cornejo seeks review of the adverse decision regarding

withholding of removal and CAT relief. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C.

§ 1252(a)(1), and we deny the petition for review.

1. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s denial of Gante Cornejo’s

claims for asylum and withholding of removal, which is the appropriate standard of

review for factual determinations. See Rodriguez Tornes v. Garland, 993 F.3d 743,

750 (9th Cir. 2021). The BIA reasonably determined that Gante Cornejo had failed

to establish a nexus between her alleged persecution and a protected ground. See

Garcia v. Wilkinson, 988 F.3d 1136, 1143 (9th Cir. 2021) (holding that an applicant

“must demonstrate a nexus between her past or feared harm and a protected

ground”).

Gante Cornejo alleges that she was persecuted on account of her membership

in various social groups: “Mexican nationals who refuse to cooperate with organized

crime,” “Mexican nationals who refuse to cooperate with guerrilla organizations,

namely, ‘Los Ardillos,’” and “immediate family members of Fidel Mendoza

Montiel.” She also claims that she is a “Mexican national[] who hold[s an] anti-

2 24-2685 gang/anti-guerilla political opinion[] or imputed political opinion[].” The BIA

assumed, without deciding, that these are protected characteristics for the purposes

of a nexus finding, but it appropriately determined that the assailants were motivated

solely by a desire for personal gain or gain on behalf of a criminal enterprise, so no

nexus existed between her alleged persecution and a protected characteristic.

Gante Cornejo points to nothing in the record that would compel a conclusion

that there was a nexus between her alleged persecution and her membership in a

protected group. She instead argues that she would not have been persecuted if she

had not resisted and refused to comply with the extortion demands of the guerilla

organizations. But the only compliance that the guerilla organizations sought was

money paid to them. Gante Cornejo’s husband, who was kidnapped by one of these

organizations, was released once the organization received a ransom payment. This

supports the BIA’s conclusion that money was the only motivating factor. See

Rodriguez-Zuniga v. Garland, 69 F.4th 1012, 1019 (9th Cir. 2023) (“Where the

record indicates that the persecutor’s actual motivation for threatening a person is to

extort money from a third person, the record does not compel finding that the

persecutor threatened the target because of a protected characteristic such as family

relation.”).

Accordingly, Gante Cornejo did not establish eligibility for asylum or

withholding of removal. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i) (“The burden of proof is

3 24-2685 on the applicant to establish that the applicant is a refugee.”); see also Rodriguez-

Zuniga, 69 F.4th at 1016 (“For both asylum and withholding claims, a petitioner

must prove a causal nexus between one of her statutorily protected characteristics

and either her past harm or her objectively tenable fear of future harm.”).

2. Substantial evidence also supports the BIA’s denial of CAT relief,

where it found that Gante Cornejo had failed to establish that returning to Mexico

would more likely than not cause her to experience harm rising to the level of torture.

Moreover, a country-conditions report regarding the “lawlessness” in Mexico and

“the government’s inability to control crime in Mexico” is insufficient evidence that

she individually would be tortured. See Tzompantzi-Salazar v. Garland, 32 F.4th

696, 706–07 (9th Cir. 2022) (holding that generalized evidence of violence and

crime is insufficient to prove that a petitioner would face a particularized risk of

future torture).

PETITION DENIED.

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