Valdovinos Tafolla v. Bondi

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: April 17, 2025
• Docket: 23-2029
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS APR 17 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MARIA CRUZ VALDOVINOS No. 23-2029 TAFOLLA; KEVIN ALEXIS RAMIREZ VALDOVINOS, Agency Nos. A215-815-396 A215-815-397 Petitioners,

v. MEMORANDUM*

PAMELA BONDI, Attorney General,

Respondent.

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

Submitted December 3, 2024** San Francisco, California

Before: COLLINS, VANDYKE, and MENDOZA, Circuit Judges.

Petitioners Maria Cruz Valdovinos Tafolla and her minor son, Kevin Alexis

Ramirez Valdovinos, both citizens of Mexico, petition for review of a decision by

the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) dismissing their appeal of an

Immigration Judge’s decision denying Valdovinos Tafolla’s application for

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes that this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against

Torture.1 We have jurisdiction under § 242 of the Immigration and Nationality

Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review the agency’s legal conclusions de novo and its

factual findings for substantial evidence. See Davila v. Barr, 968 F.3d 1136, 1141

(9th Cir. 2020). Under the latter standard, “administrative findings of fact are

conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to

the contrary.” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B). We deny the petition.

To qualify for asylum, Valdovinos Tafolla must show that she was

persecuted or has a well-founded fear of persecution “on account of race, religion,

nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion,” 8 U.S.C.

§ 1101(a)(42)(A), and that one of these protected ground constitutes “one central

reason” for the alleged persecution, id. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i). To qualify for

withholding of removal, Valdovinos Tafolla must show that one of these protected

grounds constitutes “a reason” for the persecution. Barajas-Romero v. Lynch, 846

F.3d 351, 358–59 (9th Cir. 2017); see also 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A). Substantial

evidence supports the BIA’s determination that Valdovinos Tafolla failed to

establish a sufficient nexus, under either of these standards, between her alleged

1 The son did not file a separate application and is only a derivative beneficiary of his mother’s application for asylum. See Ali v. Ashcroft, 394 F.3d 780, 782 n.1 (9th Cir. 2005) (stating that, unlike asylum, withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture “may not be derivative”).

2 persecution and her membership in her asserted particular social groups.

The agency permissibly concluded, on this record, that the alleged harm that

Valdovinos Tafolla suffered from her former partner was due to the anger and

abusiveness associated with his intoxication, and not on account of her asserted

membership in either of the particular social groups of “quasi immediate relatives”

of her former partner or “Mexican women fleeing domestic violence.” Valdovinos

Tafolla herself testified that her former partner would beat her when he was drunk

and that he drank frequently. Although Valdovinos Tafolla argues that the agency

should instead have drawn the inference that her former partner abused her on

account of “her position in Mexican society” and her membership in her asserted

particular social groups, the record does not compel that conclusion.

Consequently, the agency properly concluded that Valdovinos Tafolla failed to

establish the nexus required for either asylum or withholding of removal. See

Garcia v. Wilkinson, 988 F.3d 1136, 1144–45 (9th Cir. 2021) (stating that

“‘[p]urely personal retribution’ is not persecution ‘on account of’ a protected

ground” (alteration in original) (citation omitted)).

Moreover, given the lack of any past persecution with a nexus to a protected

ground, the agency also properly determined that Valdovinos Tafolla failed to

show that she could not safely and reasonably relocate within Mexico to avoid

feared future harm. See Duran-Rodriguez v. Barr, 918 F.3d 1025, 1029 (9th Cir.

3 2019). “For purposes of asylum and withholding of removal, assessing

[Valdovinos Tafolla’s] ability to relocate consists of two steps: (1) whether she

could relocate safely, and (2) whether it would be reasonable to require her to do

so.” Rodriguez Tornes v. Garland, 993 F.3d 743, 755 (9th Cir. 2021) (simplified).

The record does not compel the conclusion that relocation would be unsafe. On

the contrary, Valdovinos Tafolla had safely relocated before: her ex-partner did not

contact her for four years after she left him and moved to a different city in Mexico

less than three hours away. Nor does the record compel the conclusion that

relocation would be unreasonable. Valdovinos Tafolla’s parents and siblings, with

whom she has good relationships, reside in various parts of Mexico up to eight

hours away from her ex-partner, and she has not carried her burden of

demonstrating that it would be unreasonable to require her to live near them.

Substantial evidence also supports the agency’s denial of Valdovinos

Tafolla’s application for protection under the Convention Against Torture. Such

protection “cannot be granted unless an applicant shows a likelihood of torture that

‘is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a

public official acting in an official capacity or other person acting in an official

capacity.’” B.R. v. Garland, 26 F.4th 827, 844 (9th Cir. 2022) (citation omitted).

The agency relied on evidence in the record showing that the Mexican government

has taken concrete steps to deter domestic violence and to protect victims, and

4 Valdovinos Tafolla has failed to show that the record compels the contrary

conclusion that a Mexican official would consent or acquiesce to her torture. The

agency therefore permissibly rejected her application for relief under the

Convention Against Torture.

PETITION DENIED.