Immigration – Perscution

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Jose Orellana-Arias      

Case No.: 16-1874

Officials: RIPPLE, MANION, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Immigration – Perscution

Jose Orellana‐Arias is a native and citizen of El Salvador. Immigration officials detained him and took him into custody as he entered the United States near McAllen, Texas in April 2013. This was not his first time entering the United States without being admitted or paroled. We conclude that Orellana‐Arias did not meet his burden of demonstrating a nexus between the alleged persecution and his proposed social groups of wealthy deportees or gang resisters. But even were this not so, Orellana‐Arias’s petition was properly denied for failing to demonstrate either past persecution or a well‐founded fear of future persecution.

Orellana‐Arias presented country condition reports speaking to the violence in the country and the government’s inability to control it, including its acquiescence that results from corruption. R. 130– 31, 134, 138. Nevertheless, none of this constituted evidence that Orellana‐Arias specifically would be targeted for torture by the government or due to its acquiescence. “Acquiescence of a public official requires that the public official, prior to the activity constituting torture, have awareness of such activity and thereafter breach his or her legal responsibility to intervene to prevent such activity.” Lozano–Zuniga, 832 F.3d at 831 (citing 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(7)). We are not compelled to overrule the Board’s finding that Orellana‐Arias did not demonstrate that any torture would be at the acquiescence (or willful blindness, for that matter, see footnote 3, supra) of the government.

The Board’s determination (along with that of the immigration judge where the Board had not spoken) is supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole and therefore the petition for review is DENIED.

Denied

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.