UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 17-1006 FELIPE DE JESUS MOLINA MENDOZA, Petitioner, v. JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS III, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: December 6, 2017 Decided: January 18, 2018 Before DUNCAN and DIAZ, Circuit Judges, and Paula XINIS, United States District Judge for the District of Maryland, sitting by designation. Petition for review granted; vacated and remanded by unpublished opinion. Judge Duncan wrote the opinion, in which Judge Diaz and Judge Xinis concurred. ARGUED: Helen Parsonage, ELLIOT MORGAN PARSONAGE, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Petitioner. Katherine Ann Smith, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Chad A. Readler, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, Paul Fiorino, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. DUNCAN, Circuit Judge: Petitioner-Appellant Felipe de Jesus Molina Mendoza entered the United States without authorization and requested asylum, claiming a well-founded fear of future persecution if he returned to his native country. An Immigration Judge in the Department of Justice denied Molina Mendoza’s request, finding that his fear of future persecution was not objectively reasonable. The Immigration Judge cited record evidence to support his position, but he did not address any of the record evidence that undermined his decision or explain why he disregarded it. The Board of Immigration Appeals (the “BIA”), an agency in the Department of Justice, adopted and affirmed the Immigration Judge’s decision without additional explanation. In this petition for review, Molina Mendoza challenges the Immigration Judge’s and the BIA’s findings that his fear of future persecution was not objectively reasonable. However, we cannot meaningfully review those findings because neither administrative body adequately explained its decision. Specifically, the Immigration Judge and the BIA failed to explain their conclusions in terms that would allow us to ensure that they fairly considered all of the evidence pertinent to Molina Mendoza’s future-persecution claim. Accordingly, we remand this case for the agency to reevaluate Molina Mendoza’s future-persecution claim and explain its decision in terms that permit effective judicial review. I. Molina Mendoza was born on December 13, 1991, in Acapulco Guerrero, Mexico. From an early age, he was mistreated for being gay. When he was five or six years old, a 2 female caretaker sexually abused Molina Mendoza. During the incident, she told him that he should be attracted to women and enjoy the way she was touching him. Around the same time, Molina Mendoza’s father beat him with a belt for wearing women’s clothing. In 2000, Molina Mendoza entered the United States without authorization and remained here for nine years. During this time, Molina Mendoza began to hide his sexual orientation and experienced a temporary break from discrimination. In 2009, however, Molina Mendoza moved to Mexico City in pursuit of a university education and decided to be open about his sexual orientation. As an openly gay man in ...
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