GUILLERMO URENDA-BUSTOS V. MERRICK GARLAND

Full text

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 22 2022 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

GUILLERMO URENDA-BUSTOS, AKA No. 20-70625 Jose Basorta-Zamora, Agency No. A200-242-307 Petitioner,

v. MEMORANDUM*

MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General,

Respondent.

On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals

Submitted December 9, 2022** San Francisco, California

Before: NGUYEN and KOH, Circuit Judges, and BOUGH,*** District Judge.

Guillermo Urenda-Bustos (“Urenda-Bustos”), a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions this court for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration

* 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 Stephen R. Bough, United States District Judge for the Western District of Missouri, sitting by designation.

— 2 —

Appeals (“BIA”) affirming the denial by an immigration judge (“IJ”) of Urenda-Bustos’s applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We grant the petition for review and remand for proceedings consistent with this disposition.1

The sole issue before us is the BIA’s resolution of Urenda-Bustos’s argument that the IJ erred in failing to consider humanitarian asylum, see 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(1)(iii). The BIA’s decision in this respect appears to rest on a conclusion that Urenda-Bustos had not established past persecution on account of a protected ground, but the BIA’s order does not explain how it reached that conclusion. Remand is thus required because this court cannot meaningfully review the BIA’s decision. See Rodriguez-Matamoros v. I.N.S., 86 F.3d 158, 161 (9th Cir. 1996) (remanding where BIA’s conclusory statement did not enable the “reviewing court to see that the Board has heard, considered, and decided” (quoting Villanueva-Franco v. I.N.S., 802 F.2d 327, 330 (9th Cir. 1986))).2

PETITION GRANTED; REMANDED.

1 In light of our ruling, the motion for a stay of removal is denied as moot. 2 The government contends that the BIA’s particularly serious crime determination rendered Urenda-Bustos statutorily ineligible for humanitarian asylum. However, the BIA did not base its rejection of Urenda-Bustos’s humanitarian asylum argument on that ground. “[T]his court cannot affirm the BIA on a ground upon which it did not rely.” Navas v. I.N.S., 217 F.3d 646, 658 n.16 (9th Cir. 2000).