Wednesday, May 27, 2026
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Two Judges Give Woman Facing Deportation Second Chance to Make Claim for Asylum
Dissenter Says Dispute Between Neighbors in Mexico Over Stolen Property Does Give Rise to Relief
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has paved the way for the possible granting of asylum and withholding of removal based on a woman’s professed fear of violence if she is returned to Mexico, with a dissenter, Daniel Aaron Bress, maintaining that a tiff that arose between the petitioner and her neighbors is an inadequate basis for relief.
Ninth Circuit L Judge Jacqueline H. Nguyen on Friday joined with Fifth Circuit Judge Stephen A. Higginson, sitting by designation, in partially granting Margarita Rojas Ramirez’s petition for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) decision dismissing her challenge to a deportation order. While agreeing with the BIA that Rojas Ramirez had not shown that she faces peril in Mexico based on her ethnicity or political opinion, Nguyen and Higginson said in a memorandum opinion that there could be validity to her claim of potential harm stemming from her family membership, and remanded the matter for further consideration.
Two brothers, who were neighbors of Rojas Ramirez’s family, are members of a gang known as “Los Pelones” which, in Spanish, means “The Bald Ones”; members shave their heads. They allegedly stole personal property belonging to Rojas Ramirez’s son; he retrieved it; the brothers took umbrage, threatening to rape Rojas Ramirez and her daughter.
The majority said the brothers “severely beat her son.” When Rojas Ramirez related to their mother that she made a report to the police, “the mother threatened Rojas Ramirez: ‘don’t get in trouble with us,’ ” the judges recited, declaring:
“The BIA erred by ignoring evidence that animus against Rojas Ramirez’s family motivated the persecution at least in part.”
The judges acknowledged that “[a]n applicant for asylum and withholding of removal must also show that she faces persecution committed by the foreign government” or those that can’t or won’t control. They pointed out that Rojas Ramirez had produced news reports telling of the unwillingness of the Mexican police to crack down on the Pelones.
Bress said in his dissent:
“While Rojas Ramirez was a victim of unfortunate crime and violence in Mexico, she is not entitled to asylum or withholding of removal under our precedents. The majority errs in regarding a personal dispute between neighbors as providing the basis for immigration relief.”
The jurist went on to say:
“The record… does not show—much less compel the conclusion—that Rojas Ramirez’s neighbors threatened her based on any intrinsic animus against her family….This was a personal dispute between neighbors that turned violent, apparently driven by cartel-related activities. But the mere fact that Rojas Ramirez is a member of her family does not mean that her neighbors harmed her because of that family membership. Instead, this was a situation involving criminal motives and personal retribution, arising from an escalating feud over stolen property. These circumstances are regrettable, but they do not provide the basis for asylum.”
He commented:
“While our case law says that ‘the family remains the quintessential particular social group,’…there are reasons to question whether statements like this in our cases are too broad. And when that case law is then nevertheless applied to a family that has no special distinctiveness in the relevant society, we must be careful to mind the nexus requirement. Otherwise, violence and threats directed toward family members can too easily be mischaracterized as persecution on the basis of family membership itself, as the majority does here.”
The case is Rojas Ramirez v. Blanche, 22-1946.
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