RENEE GARCIA-GONZALEZ, AKA Renee Garcia, AKA Gillermo Garcia Lopez, AKA Guillermo… v. JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS III, Attorney General

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
RENEE GARCIA-GONZALEZ, AKA
Renee Garcia, AKA Gillermo Garcia
Lopez, AKA Guillermo Garcia-Gonzalez,
AKA Rene Garcia-Gonzalez, AKA
Gillermo Garcia-Lopez, AKA Guillermo
Lopez-Garcia,
Petitioner,
v.
JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS III, Attorney
General,
Respondent.
No. 16-70257
Agency No. A029-246-975
MEMORANDUM*
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Argued and Submitted July 12, 2018
Pasadena, California
Before: BERZON, FISHER,** and WATFORD, Circuit Judges.
FILED
JUL 23 2018
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The Honorable D. Michael Fisher, United States Circuit Judge for the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting by designation.

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The Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denied Renee Garcia-Gonzalez’s claim for
protection under the Convention Against Torture, and the Board of Immigration
Appeals (“BIA”) upheld the IJ’s decision and dismissed the appeal. Garcia-
Gonzalez now petitions for review of the BIA’s decision.
In his removal proceedings, Garcia-Gonzalez provided a declaration setting
out his harrowing experiences in his native Mexico and fears of future torture if
forced to return. In denying relief under CAT, the IJ offered two distinct grounds
for his decision. First, he found that Garcia-Gonzalez’s declaration was
“insufficient to establish the truth of his claims.” Alternatively, he found that,
“assuming arguendo the truth of [Garcia-Gonzalez’s] claims in his declaration, . . .
[he] has failed to establish eligibility for deferral under the CAT.” The BIA relied
on the second ground only, assuming the contents of the declaration to be true for
purposes of the appeal and declining to address the IJ’s other findings. The BIA
then found that Garcia-Gonzalez had not shown that he was more likely than not to
be tortured if returned to Mexico.
Substantial evidence does not support the BIA’s determination. The
evidence in the record, including Garcia-Gonzalez’s declaration and country
conditions evidence, “compels a reasonable factfinder to conclude that the BIA’s

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decision is incorrect.” Tampubolon v. Holder, 610 F.3d 1056, 1059 (9th Cir.
2010).
Garcia-Gonzalez fears torture from three different sources: Mexican police
officers, who have beaten him many times in the past; cartel members, who have
kidnapped him and murdered his entire family; and mental health institutions,
where he has seen police fail to protect patients from one another and, on one
occasion, commit mass murder of patients. Although the proper inquiry requires
calculating the sum of the weighted probabilities of each particular source of
torture, we conclude that Garcia-Gonzalez has shown a likelihood that he will
suffer torture at the hands of police officers. Therefore, we need not consider the
additional likelihood of torture in mental health institutions or from cartel
members.
The proposition that Garcia-Gonzalez is more likely than not to be tortured
by Mexican police officers follows from two premises. First, it is nearly certain
that, if returned to Mexico, he will again be detained by police officers at some
point. Second, it is more likely than not that, if he is detained by police officers, he
will suffer harm amounting to torture.
The evidence compels the conclusion that Garcia-Gonzalez is nearly certain
to be detained by police officers in Mexico. During the time he has been in

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Mexico, he has “constantly” been detained and questioned without cause. He has
been arrested on at least three occasions. Police officers have told him that they
believe people with tattoos, like him, are criminals. And he has had frequent
contact with the police. He has often gone to shelters to get food, where police
officers would frequently question and abuse the people in line, including him.
This evidence compels the conclusion that, if returned to Mexico, he is virtually
certain to be detained by police officers again.
If Garcia-Gonzalez is detained, the evidence also compels the conclusion
that it is more likely than not that police officers will inflict harm rising to the level
of torture. In the past, Mexican police officers have beaten him with their guns and
batons. They have punched him and kicked him during questioning. These
beatings have been severe enough to inflict permanent damage, leaving him with
constant back pain. Country conditions evidence shows that treatment of this
kind—and worse—at the hands of the police is not out of the ordinary. The State
Department’s Human Rights Report found “frequent reports of citizens and foreign
nationals beaten, suffocated, tortured with electric shocks, raped, and threatened
with death in custody of arresting authorities.” And there was further evidence that
“[t]orture remains a widespread practice in Mexico to obtained forced
confessions . . . . Common tactics include beatings, asphyxiation, waterboarding,

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electric shocks, and death threats.” The evidence that Mexican police frequently
rely on torture, paired with Garcia-Gonzalez’s consistent and frequent past
experiences, compels the conclusion that he will more likely than not be tortured in
custody. See Nuru v. Gonzales, 404 F.3d 1207, 1217–18 (9th Cir. 2005).
Assuming, as the BIA did for the purposes of appeal, that the contents of
Garcia-Gonzalez’s declaration are true, the record compels the conclusion that he
is more likely than not to be tortured in police custody if returned to Mexico. We
therefore remand for the BIA to consider the IJ’s alternate ground for decision,
taking into account not only the risk of torture by police officers but also the other
sources of potential future torture (mental health institutions and cartel members)
that we have had no need to address.
PETITION FOR REVIEW GRANTED; CASE REMANDED.

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