Mercado-Martinez v. Bondi

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: November 19, 2025
• Docket: 22-53
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS NOV 19 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

RICARDO JAVIER MERCADO- No. 22-53 MARTINEZ, Agency No. A202-064-698 Petitioner,

v. MEMORANDUM*

PAMELA BONDI, Attorney General,

Respondent.

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

Submitted November 17, 2025** Phoenix, Arizona

Before: N.R. SMITH, HURWITZ, and COLLINS, Circuit Judges.

Ricardo Javier Mercado-Martinez, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions

for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) dismissing

an appeal from an order of an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denying cancellation of

* 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). removal. Where, as here, the BIA affirms the IJ’s findings “and also adds its own

reasoning, we review the decision of the BIA and those parts of the IJ’s decision

upon which it relies.” Duran-Rodriguez v. Barr, 918 F.3d 1025, 1027–28 (9th Cir.

2019). Exercising jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, we deny the petition for

review. See Wilkinson v. Garland, 601 U.S. 209, 212 (2024).

1. To qualify for cancellation of removal, a non-permanent-resident must

establish, among other things, that “removal would result in exceptional and

extremely unusual hardship” to a qualifying relative. 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1)(D). We

“review[] for substantial evidence” “whether the BIA erred in applying the

exceptional and extremely unusual hardship standard to a given set of

facts.” Gonzalez-Juarez v. Bondi, 137 F.4th 996, 1003 (9th Cir. 2025). Mercado

contends that the agency erred by failing to properly assess the hardship to his U.S.

citizen daughter. He contends that the agency improperly found that hardship to his

daughter would be ameliorated by his reunion with his other children in Mexico and

failed to consider she would lose her only biological parent. Because of this, he

argues, the agency also erred in its cumulative assessment analysis.

We disagree. The BIA independently assessed the harm to each of Mercado’s

qualifying children, and both the BIA and IJ stated they considered the entire record

or totality of the circumstances in reaching their decision. Gonzalez-Juarez, 137

F.4th at 1008 (noting that, although the agency “must consider all of the evidence

2 22-53 before it,” it need not “individually identify and discuss every piece of evidence in

the record”) (cleaned up). The BIA and IJ expressly considered hardship to

Mercado’s citizen daughter, including the emotional harm of losing visits with her

father, but concluded it was not exceptional or extremely unusual. They also noted

that his daughter would continue living with her grandmother, her primary caregiver

for years. Substantial evidence therefore supports the agency’s conclusion that

Mercado had not established the requisite “exceptional and extremely unusual”

hardship to a qualifying relative. See Cabrera-Alvarez v. Gonzales, 423 F.3d 1006,

1013 (9th Cir. 2005) (finding no “exceptional and extremely unusual” hardship when

children would be separated from their father but cared for by other family

members).

2. Because Mercado’s cumulative assessment argument rests on the premise

that the agency erred in evaluating hardship to his daughter, it also fails.

PETITION FOR REVIEW DENIED.

3 22-53