Garcia-Illenes v. Bondi

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: May 6, 2025
• Docket: 23-2592
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 6 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ARTEMIO GARCIA-ILLENES, No. 23-2592 Agency No. Petitioner, A092-169-635 v. MEMORANDUM* PAMELA BONDI, Attorney General,

Respondent.

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

Argued and Submitted March 31, 2025 San Francisco, California

Before: HURWITZ, KOH, and JOHNSTONE, Circuit Judges.

Artemio Garcia-Illenes, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions for review

of an order by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) dismissing his appeal from

a decision of an Immigration Judge (“IJ”), which denied his application for deferral

of removal under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). See 8 C.F.R. § 1208.17.

We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review the BIA’s factual findings

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. for substantial evidence and legal conclusions de novo. See Plancarte Sauceda v.

Garland, 23 F.4th 824, 831 (9th Cir. 2022) (cleaned up). We deny the petition.

1. The BIA did not err in determining that the IJ’s treatment of Garcia-

Illenes’s testimony complied with Matter of J-R-R-A-, 26 I. & N. Dec. 609 (B.I.A.

2015). The IJ appropriately looked to the “totality of the circumstances” in

determining that, while credible, Garcia-Illenes was an unreliable historian. Shrestha

v. Holder, 590 F.3d 1034, 1039–40 (9th Cir. 2010). In accordance with J-R-R-A-,

the IJ “generally accept[ed] that [Garcia-Illenes] believes what he has presented,”

crediting his subjective fear of torture. Matter of J-R-R-A-, 26 I. & N. Dec. at 612.

The IJ then properly determined whether Garcia-Illenes could “meet his burden of

proof based on the objective evidence of record,” id., looking to “objective

observations of healthcare providers and the objective evidence” concerning his

likelihood of torture upon removal to Mexico.

2. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s denial of CAT relief based on

Garcia-Illenes’s failure to establish a sufficient likelihood of torture after removal.

The BIA determined that, even if Garcia-Illenes were likely to be placed in a mental-

health institution in Mexico, he did not show “that he will more likely than not be

subjected to the torture he fears in [such] institutions.” The country-conditions

reports on which Garcia-Illenes relies document torturous conditions in some of the

Mexican mental-health institutions investigated. But Garcia-Illenes has identified no

2 23-2592 evidence demonstrating that, if institutionalized, he is likely to be placed in one of

the institutions where torture has been known to occur. The record therefore does

not compel the conclusion that he will more likely than not be tortured if

institutionalized.

3. Because we affirm the BIA’s decision on that basis, we need not address its

determination that Garcia-Illenes also failed to show a sufficient likelihood of

psychiatric decompensation and consequent institutionalization. See Velasquez-

Samayoa v. Garland, 49 F.4th 1149, 1154 (9th Cir. 2022). We therefore do not

consider Garcia-Illenes’s argument that the BIA erred in its treatment of Dr. Julia

Kuck’s testimony, which concerned only the risk of decompensation.

DENIED.1

1 The temporary stay of removal will dissolve upon the issuance of the mandate. The motion for stay of removal is otherwise denied.

3 23-2592