Reyna Calmo-Aguilar v. Merrick Garland


NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 9 2023 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT REYNA FELVIRA CALMO-AGUILAR, No. 20-71398 Petitioner, Agency No. A209-400-308 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued April 15, 2022 Submission Withdrawn April 19, 2022 Resubmitted February 9, 2023 Pasadena, California Before: SMITH,** BADE, and LEE, Circuit Judges. Reyna Felvira Calmo-Aguilar, a lesbian woman and native and citizen of Guatemala, petitions for review of the order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing her appeal from a decision of the Immigration Judge (IJ) denying * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable D. Brooks Smith, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting by designation. her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. “We review the denial of asylum, withholding of removal and CAT claims for substantial evidence.” Duran-Rodriguez v. Barr, 918 F.3d 1025, 1028 (9th Cir. 2019). “Under this standard, we must uphold the agency determination unless the evidence compels a contrary conclusion.” Id. We grant the petition and remand for further proceedings. 1. “To demonstrate entitlement to asylum or withholding of removal on the basis of past persecution,” Doe v. Holder, 736 F.3d 871, 877 (9th Cir. 2013), an applicant has the burden of establishing “(1) an incident, or incidents, that rise to the level of persecution; (2) that is on account of one of the statutorily-protected grounds; and (3) is committed by the government or forces the government is either unable or unwilling to control,” id. at 877–78 (quoting Afriyie v. Holder, 613 F.3d 924, 931 (9th Cir. 2010)). Here, the record compels the conclusion that Guatemalan authorities would be unable or unwilling to control Calmo-Aguilar’s persecutors. Our decision is controlled by Bringas-Rodriguez v. Sessions, 850 F.3d 1051, 1073–74 (9th Cir. 2017) (en banc), where we held that the petitioner was not required to report the abuse he suffered as a child on account of his sexual orientation because doing so would have been futile and dangerous. We also held 2 that the evidence compelled the conclusion that the government was unable or unwilling to control the petitioner’s persecutors. Id. at 1073–75. Calmo-Aguilar put forward similar evidence. She testified about a woman whose experience suggested the police would not protect women, let alone homosexual women, from sexual assault.1 Calmo-Aguilar also feared that she would be raped or killed if returned to her native country; indeed, she experienced community-wide harassment, including death threats and sexual assault, as a young teen when others learned of her sexual orientation. She did not go to the police out of fear that they would not protect her and “would do something to [her],” which she based …

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