Yerli Martinez Cruz v. Todd Blanche

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: June 2, 2026
• Docket: 25-1423
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

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UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 25-1423

YERLI LIZETH MARTINEZ CRUZ,

Petitioner,

v.

TODD BLANCHE, Acting Attorney General,

Respondent.

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

Submitted: March 13, 2026 Decided: June 2, 2026

Before DIAZ, Chief Judge, and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge, and KEENAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Petition denied by unpublished opinion. Chief Judge Diaz wrote the opinion, in which Judge Richardson and Judge Keenan joined.

ON BRIEF: Benjamin J. Osorio, Alexandra Ribe, MURRAY OSORIO PLLC, Fairfax, Virginia, for Petitioner. Brett A. Shumate, Assistant Attorney General, Sheri R. Glaser, Peter Gannon, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. USCA4 Appeal: 25-1423 Doc: 46 Filed: 06/02/2026 Pg: 2 of 6

DIAZ, Chief Judge:

Yerli Lizeth Martinez Cruz, a citizen of Honduras, sought asylum after a gang

member stalked and harassed her. Because her claim was based on private persecution,

she had to show that the Honduran government was unable or unwilling to control her

assailant. An immigration judge found, and the Board of Immigration Appeals agreed, that

Martinez Cruz couldn’t meet that burden. So the judge rejected her asylum application,

and the Board dismissed her appeal.

Because substantial evidence supported the immigration judge’s dispositive factual

finding, we must deny Martinez Cruz’s petition for review.

I.

A.

Martinez Cruz is from a small village in Honduras. In March 2014, when she was

fourteen years old, a much-older gang member nicknamed “El Macabro” accosted her as

she walked to school.

El Macabro initially told Martinez Cruz she was pretty and said he wanted her to be

his girlfriend. But his tone quickly turned aggressive and he demanded she “be his

woman.” Joint Appendix (J.A.) 136. El Macabro also threatened to kill Martinez Cruz if

he saw her with another man, and said he’d kill her if she didn’t leave with him.

El Macabro’s threats continued and escalated to an attempted sexual assault.

Bystanders intervened and took Martinez Cruz home. Two days after the attack, Martinez

Cruz and her grandmother traveled two hours by bus to report the assault to police. The

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officers told Martinez Cruz that they would investigate. But Martinez Cruz never heard

from them again, nor did she ever learn of them visiting her village.

El Macabro continued to harass Martinez Cruz. He threatened to rob and kill her.

A distant relative intervened, and a cousin walked her to school for the next two weeks.

But because El Macabro continued to stalk her, Martinez Cruz eventually stopped going to

school.

Martinez Cruz fled Honduras about three months after her first interaction with El

Macabro. After she arrived in the United States, her grandmother, who remained in

Honduras, told Martinez Cruz that El Macabro threatened to kill Martinez Cruz for filing

a police report and fleeing the country.

B.

At the Texas border, Customs and Border Patrol apprehended Martinez Cruz and

the Department of Homeland Security charged her as removable. Because she was an

unaccompanied minor, the Department quickly closed her removal proceeding to allow

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to consider her asylum application.

Martinez Cruz sought asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the

Convention Against Torture. The immigration judge denied her application. Although the

judge found Martinez Cruz credible, he also found that she’d failed to show that her

persecution was “on account of” a protected category or that the Honduran government

was unwilling or unable to protect her from future threats. J.A. 43–46, 49.

The Board of Immigration Appeals found no clear error and accordingly dismissed

Martinez Cruz’s appeal.

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This petition followed. 1

II.

To qualify for asylum, an applicant must show that she faces persecution in her

home country because of her “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social

group, or political opinion.” 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(42)(A), 1158(b)(1)(B)(i). If she faces

persecution from a private actor, she must show that her “government is unable or

unwilling to control” that actor. Molina-Diaz v. Bondi, 128 F.4th 568, 571 (4th Cir. 2025).

We start—and end—with Honduras’s willingness and ability to protect Martinez

Cruz from her assailant. Because that’s a question of fact, we review for substantial

evidence. See Ngarurih v. Ashcroft, 371 F.3d 182, 188 (4th Cir. 2004). We must treat the

immigration judge’s factual finding “as conclusive unless the evidence was such that any

reasonable adjudicator would have been compelled to a contrary view.” Tassi v. Holder,

660 F.3d 710, 719 (4th Cir. 2011).

The immigration judge found, and the Board affirmed, that Martinez Cruz “did not

establish that the government was or would be unable or unwilling to protect her.” J.A. 4

(citing J.A. 49). Martinez Cruz argues that this finding was clear error because the

Honduran government couldn’t protect her, even if it was willing to do so.

1 Martinez Cruz didn’t appeal the denial of her request for protection under the Convention Against Torture.

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The immigration judge credited and meaningfully engaged with Martinez Cruz’s

testimony. He found that police took a report about El Macabro and said they would look

for him. Although the judge acknowledged that “the police may not have done as much as

[Martinez Cruz] hoped,” he posited that some investigation likely happened because El

Macabro became aware of it. J.A. 49. And Martinez Cruz never testified that she believed

the police betrayed her; she merely speculated El Macabro must have learned of the

investigation from the police.

The judge also considered country conditions evidence. He noted that Honduras

prosecutes rape and sexual harassment regularly and offers easy-to-access resources for

women to report sexual harassment or abuse. Because the Honduran government takes

rape and sexual harassment seriously and provides services to women like Martinez Cruz,

the judge found she failed “to establish that the government of Honduras would be unable

or unwilling to protect her from El Macabro.” J.A. 50.

Martinez Cruz’s assertion that the police response was merely token can’t overcome

those findings. Orellana v. Barr, 925 F.3d 145, 153 (4th Cir. 2019). Her case isn’t

comparable to Orellana. We granted the petition there based on a record showing years of

police inaction and token responses after the petitioner’s repeated efforts to get help. Here,

by contrast, Martinez Cruz made only one report and fled the country within weeks. It’s

true, of course, that we have no record of police action. But we also have no record of

inaction. While the timing is not dispositive, the record is.

We don’t suggest that Martinez Cruz was wrong to flee when she did. Nor do we

diminish the severity of the harassment she endured, or discredit her view of the facts. But

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on this record (or lack thereof), we cannot say that any reasonable factfinder would have

been compelled to take her view of the facts. So our highly deferential standard of review

requires us to deny her petition. 2 And we dispense with oral argument because the facts

and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before us and argument

would not aid our decision-making process.

PETITION DENIED

2 We needn’t reach Martinez Cruz’s nexus arguments because she’d need to prevail on both issues for us to grant her petition. And the standard for withholding of removal is more demanding than that for asylum, so her withholding claim necessarily fails because her asylum claim does. Camara v. Ashcroft, 378 F.3d 361, 367 (4th Cir. 2004).