No. 13-­--1679 REYNA LIZZETTE URBINA-­--DORE v. ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., Attorney General of the United States

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 13-­‐‑1679
REYNA LIZZETTE URBINA-­‐‑DORE, et al.,
Petitioners,
v.
ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., Attorney General of the United States,
Respondent.
____________________
Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
____________________
ARGUED OCTOBER 8, 2013 — DECIDED NOVEMBER 18, 2013
____________________
Before BAUER, POSNER, and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges.
EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. Petitioners are citizens of
Honduras. They applied for asylum in the United States,
contending that they had been persecuted as members of the
“social group” of persons owning timberlands and would
face more risks if returned to their native land. Organized
squatters known internationally as La Via Campesina sup-­‐‑
ply the basis of their claim. Petitioners testified that Hondu-­‐‑
ran campesinos (who may or may not be affiliated with the

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No. 13-­‐‑1679 2
international movement) invade agricultural lands in force
and take over production; if they raise the national flag and
assert that owners are not using the land, police and judges
are unwilling to evict them. Timber-­‐‑bearing lands may re-­‐‑
main out of production for many years while trees mature.
This makes them targets for campesinos, who cut and sell
the timber. Petitioners assert that campesinos occupied their
land in 2008 and that they fear for their lives should they re-­‐‑
turn to assert their rights as the lawful owners.
An immigration judge denied the request for asylum on
three grounds: (1) that the past and feared future harm do
not amount to persecution; (2) that the squatters’ acts did not
occur because of petitioners’ membership in any particular
group but were instead done for profit and with indifference
to who was injured as a result; and (3) that the squatters’ acts
could not be imputed to the government.
Each of these three grounds reflects an aspect of 8 U.S.C.
§1101(a)(42)(A), the cornerstone of the asylum process. The
statute permits federal officials to grant asylum to aliens
who seek refuge here “because of persecution or a well-­‐‑
founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, na-­‐‑
tionality, membership in a particular social group, or politi-­‐‑
cal opinion”. The IJ’s first and third reasons both concern the
definition of “persecution”, which differs from less serious
travails of life (ground 1) and also entails governmental dis-­‐‑
crimination rather than private crime (ground 3). See Hor v.
Gonzales, 421 F.3d 497 (7th Cir. 2005); Bitsin v. Holder, 719
F.3d 619, 628–31 (7th Cir. 2013). The second ground concerns
the statutory causation requirement.
Petitioners contested all three issues before the Board of
Immigration Appeals, for an adverse decision on any one of

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3 No. 13-­‐‑1679
the issues is conclusive against them. The BIA bypassed the
first issue, as it was entitled to do, see INS v. Bagamasbad, 429
U.S. 24 (1976), and ruled against petitioners on the other
two. As the Board saw matters, the record establishes that
the campesinos are thieves whose own interests, rather than
antipathy toward petitioners’ ownership, led to the orga-­‐‑
nized invasion of petitioners’ land.
The Board added that, although a government’s unwill-­‐‑
ingness or inability to control private misconduct can justify
treating crime as persecution, Honduras is both willing and
able to control the campesinos. Local police initially did not
intervene, but petitioners hired a lawyer who obtained a
court order requiring them to do so. A task force of 70 offic-­‐‑
ers then removed the squatters. Some returned—but so did
the police, who evicted them a second time. Petitioners con-­‐‑
tended that Honduras’s legal system protects squatters who
raise the national flag on other people’s land, but the Board
thought that actions speak more loudly than words—and
the police turned out in force to enforce the judge’s eviction
order. Petitioners say that they fear a repetition of the inva-­‐‑
sion; the Board thought that this would just lead to a repeti-­‐‑
tion of the eviction.
The main questions in this court are—or should have
been—whether substantial evidence supports the Board’s
conclusions that the campesinos did not act “because of” pe-­‐‑
titioners’ status as owners, and that at all events Honduras is
both willing and able to protect landowners from campesin-­‐‑
os. Instead, however, petitioners devote almost all of their
brief to the question whether owners of rural land, or of tim-­‐‑
ber-­‐‑bearing land in particular, constitute a “social group” as
the statute uses that term. Our decision in Cece v. Holder, No.

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No. 13-­‐‑1679 4
11-­‐‑1989 (7th Cir. Aug. 9, 2013) (en banc), reflects disagree-­‐‑
ment with the way the Board has applied that term, and it
could well be that the approach in Cece would require the
Board to recognize the sort of “social group” that petitioners
propose. But how could a decision in petitioners’ favor on
this subject help them? Some language in the immigration
judge’s decision expresses doubt about petitioners’ proposed
“social group,” but it did not underpin the IJ’s adverse deci-­‐‑
sion—and for the sake of argument the Board assumed that
petitioners belong to a cognizable social group. Petitioners
and appellants need to address the issues on which they lost,
and “social group” is not among them.
Petitioners briefly mention the causation question
(whether the campesinos acted because of petitioners’ status
as landowners) and allude to the question whether Hondu-­‐‑
ras is unwilling or unable to control agricultural squatters,
but they do not develop an argument on either subject. Peti-­‐‑
tioners say that the campesinos may return and that four of
them were seen in 2009 wielding machetes near their land
and were heard to threaten retaliation for the eviction. These
events may explain why petitioners have hired a guard for
their land and are uneasy about returning to Honduras, but
they do not come to grips with the Board’s conclusion that
the government is both willing and able to control trespasses
and other threats of misconduct by campesinos.
The Board has used the “unwilling or unable to control”
formula since 1964 yet has never attempted to quantify just
how far a nation may depart from perfect law enforcement
without being deemed complicit in private crimes. See Cece,
slip op. 29–30 (separate opinion). Many places in the United
States endure high levels of violence without any suggestion

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5 No. 13-­‐‑1679
that the police and judiciary have abetted criminals in “per-­‐‑
secution” of persons whose property is stolen or whose lives
are threatened. But we need not explore the subject here. Pe-­‐‑
titioners have not asked us to address it or explained why
they think Honduras’s demonstrated commitment to evict-­‐‑
ing their squatters is inadequate. We have not been given
any reason to doubt that the Board’s decision is supported
by substantial evidence, so the petition for review is
DENIED.

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