Concepcion Guzman Sanchez v. Merrick Garland ( 2022 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 16 2022
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
CONCEPCION GUZMAN SANCHEZ, No. 20-71518
Petitioner, Agency No. A073-000-360
v.
MEMORANDUM*
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,
Respondent.
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Submitted May 12, 2022**
San Francisco, California
Before: O’SCANNLAIN and BUMATAY, Circuit Judges, and BAKER,***
International Trade Judge.
Concepcion Guzman Sanchez petitions for review of the Board of
Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) dismissal of her appeal from an Immigration Judge’s
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
***
The Honorable M. Miller Baker, Judge for the United States Court of
International Trade, sitting by designation.
(“IJ”) decision denying her applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and
protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We review denials of
those claims for substantial evidence. See Yali Wang v. Sessions, 861 F.3d 1003,
1007 (9th Cir. 2017). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we dismiss
in part and deny in part.
1. We lack jurisdiction to consider Sanchez’s arguments regarding her
gang-opposition social group. Our jurisdiction extends only to those claims
exhausted before the BIA. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1); Bare v. Barr, 975 F.3d 952, 960
(9th Cir. 2020). And here, Sanchez did not present the social group of “Hondurans
who take concrete steps to oppose gang membership and gang authority” to the BIA.
At the BIA, she argued only that she was persecuted on account of (1) her actual or
imputed political opinion; and (2) her membership in her nuclear family. Because
Sanchez’s newly-proposed social group is unexhausted before the BIA, we lack
jurisdiction to review any claims in connection with that group.
2. Because Sanchez did not in her opening brief meaningfully challenge
the BIA’s dispositive findings, those issues are waived and her petition fails. See
Martinez-Serrano v. INS, 94 F.3d 1256, 1259 (9th Cir. 1996) (holding that a party
waives an issue by failing to meaningfully discuss that issue in the opening brief).
As noted above, the bulk of the argument in the opening brief consists of assertions
about why the IJ (rather than the BIA) purportedly erred by not addressing the gang-
2
opposition social group. The remainder of the argument focuses on whether the IJ
(again, rather than the BIA) erred in finding that the harm Sanchez described did not
rise to the level of past persecution. The result of Sanchez’s exclusive focus on the
IJ’s alleged errors is that her brief fails to address the BIA’s findings at all, much
less address why she contends they were erroneous.1
PETITION DISMISSED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART.
1
A petitioner cannot preserve an argument by writing a couple of brief
introductory and concluding sentences that only mention the argument in passing.
See Martinez-Serrano, 94 F.3d at 1259 (“Issues raised in a brief that are not
supported by argument are deemed abandoned.”); see also Arpin v. Santa Clara
Valley Transp. Agency, 261 F.3d 912, 919 (9th Cir. 2001).
3