DENVER, CO – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit denied the petition for review filed by Jorge Luis Cortez-Cabrera, a Mexican national seeking protection from removal to Mexico. Cortez-Cabrera claimed he would face persecution and torture because he is the son of a former police officer.
The three-judge panel, composed of Circuit Judges Harris Hartz, Allison Eid, and Joel Carson, upheld the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision affirming an immigration judge’s denial of withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture.
The court found that Cortez-Cabrera failed to demonstrate a sufficient connection between his alleged mistreatment and his claimed social group of “children of former Mexican police officers.” The panel agreed with lower findings that the evidence did not show his family background was more than an incidental factor in his encounters with law enforcement.
Cortez-Cabrera also failed to establish that he was tortured or would be tortured if returned to Mexico. The court noted that while he testified to repeated detentions by police and one incident in which he jumped from a bridge to evade officers, the evidence did not prove the officers intentionally inflicted severe harm.
The Tenth Circuit concluded that substantial evidence supported the lower rulings and denied the petition for review.
