Immigration – Asylum Claim

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Francisco Javier Perez v. Jefferson B. Sessions III

Case No.: 17-1369

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and MANION and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Immigration – Asylum Claim

Francisco Javier Perez, a Honduran citizen, petitions for review of the denial of his application for deferral of removal under Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture. The Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed his appeal from an immigration judge’s decision denying his application and ordering his removal to Honduras. In the Board’s view, the IJ correctly decided that Perez had not shown that, if removed to Honduras, he was more likely than not to be tortured with the acquiescence of a public official by a street gang. In this court, Perez argues that the immigration service erred by failing to make factual findings about whether he would have been tortured had he not narrowly escaped the gang’s violent recruitment efforts years earlier and that the Board improperly did not consider whether, if removed to Honduras, he could live safely and openly there as an unwilling recruit of this gang. We conclude that the Board erred by truncating the crucial factual inquiry about Perez’s risk of torture if he is returned to Honduras and by asking the wrong question with respect to internal relocation. We therefore grant the petition for review and remand to the Board for further proceedings.

Petition for Review Granted and Remanded

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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.