Maria Laura Serrano-De Melendez v. TODD BLANCHE, Attorney General

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 25-1541
MARIA LAURA SERRANO-DE MELENDEZ; LUIS CARLOS MELENDEZ-
SERRANO; KEVIN ENRIQUE MELENDEZ-SERRANO; F.N.M.S.,
Petitioners,
v.
TODD BLANCHE, Attorney General,
Respondent.
On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Submitted: June 9, 2026 Decided: August 19, 2026
Before AGEE, Circuit Judge, and TRAXLER and KEENAN, Senior Circuit Judges.
Petition for review granted; order vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam
opinion.
ON BRIEF: Victor Legorreta, LAW OFFICES OF MICHAEL E. ROSADO, P.C., Laurel,
Maryland, for Petitioners. Brett A. Shumate, Assistant Attorney General, Jessica E. Burns,
Rosanne M. Perry, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.

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PER CURIAM:
Maria Laura Serrano-De Melendez (“Serrano”) and her three minor children
(collectively, “Petitioners”) are natives and citizens of El Salvador. Petitioners seek review
of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) order dismissing their appeal of the decision
of the immigration judge (“IJ”) denying their applications for asylum, withholding of
removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). For the following
reasons, we grant their petitions for review and remand for further proceedings.1
I.
A.
Serrano and her children fled to the United States from El Salvador in July 2015
after members of the MS gang murdered Salvador Enrique Melendez Rivas (“Salvador”)—
Serrano’s husband and the father of her children. The persecution of Serrano’s family
began in 2012, when the MS gang began extorting money from Serrano and Salvador and
threatened to kill the whole family if they did not comply. In 2014, a leader of the MS
gang known as “El Cruel” contacted Serrano and told her he wanted to have sex with her
and did not care that she was married to Salvador. When Serrano told Salvador about El
Cruel’s behavior, the two confronted El Cruel and were warned never to do so again.
In 2015, the MS gang attempted to recruit Salvador to join, but he refused because
he had a wife and family and wanted to continue working as a Microbus driver. After he
1 Petitioner Serrano is the lead Petitioner in this case. Her children filed separate
applications for relief and protection based on the same set of facts set forth in her
application and were also listed as derivative beneficiaries on her asylum application.

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refused, Serrano and Salvador noticed MS gang members acting suspiciously. For
example, they would get on Salvador’s bus, pay the fare, and immediately get off the bus.
Salvador told Serrano that he thought the men were looking for someone to kill.
In April 2015, Salvador was shot and killed by four MS gang members while he
was working. Salvador’s friend, Anibal Melendez (“Anibal”), was seated near him on the
Microbus and witnessed the murder. Anibal called Serrano and told her about the shooting,
but Salvador was dead when she arrived. At Salvador’s wake, a friend of Serrano told her
that she had seen three masked gang members in the vicinity prior to the murder. MS gang
members also approached Serrano at the wake. They asked her if she knew who killed her
husband. She lied and said she did not. They told her that “it was better to leave it like
that, not to go to the police because otherwise, they [would] kill [her] children and [her].”
J.A. 151. That evening, and for a few days after, Serrano and her children saw a blue van
with tinted windows parked outside their home and believed the gang was watching them.
They fled to Serrano’s mother’s home in another city, where they briefly hid until they
entered the United States. After she left El Salvador, Serrano’s mother-in-law told her that
MS gang members had asked about her whereabouts and Serrano’s friend told her a gang
member’s girlfriend had also asked where she was located.
In support of their requests for relief, Petitioners submitted Anibal’s statement.
Anibal cooperated with the local police after the murder and identified three of the four
gang members who murdered Salvador. The men were arrested but released without
charges. Anibal believes the men paid for their release. After they were released, the
police stopped all communication with Anibal and offered him no protection, forcing him

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to also go into hiding. Petitioners also submitted statements from Serrano’s mother and
mother-in-law, confirming that Salvador was murdered by gang members and that Serrano
and her children fled El Salvador because of the threats.
B.
After they entered the United States in July 2015, without admission or parole, the
Department of Homeland Security placed Petitioners in removal proceedings. Petitioners
sought asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Attorney General may “grant
asylum to any alien who qualifies as a refugee.” Toledo-Vasquez v. Garland, 27 F.4th 281,
286 (4th Cir. 2022) (cleaned up). “To qualify as a refugee, an applicant must demonstrate
that he is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself of the
protection of, his native country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of
persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social
group, or political opinion.” Id. (cleaned up). “Persecution occurs ‘on account of’ a
protected ground if that ground serves as at least one central reason for the feared
persecution.” Id. (cleaned up). “A central reason is not necessarily the central reason or
even a dominant central reason, but it must be more than incidental, tangential, superficial,
or subordinate to another reason for harm.” Id. (cleaned up). “[W]ithholding of removal
covers a narrower . . . set of circumstances than asylum,” and requires the applicant to
“demonstrate a clear probability of persecution.” Yi Ni v. Holder, 613 F.3d 415, 427 (4th
Cir. 2010) (cleaned up). “Because of the higher standard required for withholding of

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removal, we follow the general rule that an applicant who is ineligible for asylum is
necessarily ineligible for withholding of removal.” Id. (cleaned up).
To prevail on a claim under the CAT, an applicant must first establish that “it is
more likely than not that if removed he will suffer future mistreatment—that is, he will
endure severe pain or suffering that is intentionally inflicted.” McDougall v. Bondi, 150
F.4th 637, 642 (4th Cir. 2025) (cleaned up). If the claimant establishes a likelihood of
future torture, he must also show “that this likely future mistreatment will occur at the
hands of government officials or with the consent or acquiescence of government
officials.” Id. (cleaned up).
Serrano sought asylum based on her membership in two particular social groups
(“PSGs”): (1) her family ties to her murdered husband; and (2) her status as a Salvadoran
woman. She also sought asylum based on her imputed anti-gang political opinion. Her
children sought protection as family members of their father and mother.
The IJ issued an oral decision, finding that Serrano’s “testimony was believable,
consistent, and sufficiently detailed to be deemed credible” and that there was “no
indication that any material element of her claim was deliberately fabricated.” J.A. 86.
However, the IJ concluded that Petitioners failed to establish persecution on account of
their membership in a family-based PSG and failed to prove that the police were or would
be unable or unwilling to control their persecutors.2 The IJ did not address Serrano’s claim
2 The IJ also found that Petitioners’ family-based PSG was not cognizable based
upon a vacated agency opinion, see Matter of L-E-A-, 27 I&N Dec. 581 (A.G. 2019), that
(Continued)

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for asylum based on her membership in the PSG of Salvadoran women. The IJ also rejected
Petitioners’ request for withholding of removal and protection under the CAT. In a single-
member decision, the BIA dismissed Petitioners’ appeal of the IJ’s decision without
addressing Serrano’s argument that the IJ ignored the claim based on her status as a
Salvadoran woman.
On appeal, Petitioners argue that the IJ and BIA failed to announce their decisions
in terms sufficient to enable appellate review. In the alternative, Petitioners argue that the
IJ and BIA erred in denying relief on the merits.
II.
A.
In reviewing decisions of the BIA, “[w]e review factual findings for substantial
evidence, treating them as conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be
compelled to conclude to the contrary.” Portillo Flores v. Garland, 3 F.4th 615, 626 (4th
Cir. 2021) (en banc) (cleaned up). “[W]e will uphold the BIA’s decision unless it is
manifestly contrary to law and an abuse of discretion.” Id. (cleaned up). Such an abuse of
discretion occurs if the agency “fails to offer a reasoned explanation for its decision, or if
it distorts or disregards important aspects of the applicant’s claim.” Id. (cleaned up). The
applicant “is entitled to know that agency adjudicators reviewed all his evidence,
understood it, and had a cogent, articulable basis for its determination that his evidence
was contrary to our precedent, see Garcia v. Garland, 73 F.4th 219, 230 (4th Cir. 2023).
The BIA did not rely on this ruling, and the government does not defend it.

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was insufficient.” Id. (cleaned up). Although they “need not write an exegesis on every
contention,” the IJ and BIA must “consider the issues raised and announce its decision in
terms sufficient to enable a reviewing court to perceive that it has heard and thought and
not merely reacted.” Cortes v. Garland, 105 F.4th 124, 135 (4th Cir. 2024) (cleaned up).
B.
Having reviewed the administrative record and the agency decisions, we cannot
discern that the agency adjudicators sufficiently considered the legally significant evidence
and adequately explained the basis for their denial of relief.
We start with the agency’s evaluation of Petitioners’ claims for asylum and
withholding of removal, and we find several deficiencies. First, in evaluating the element
of nexus, the IJ recognized that Serrano had been threatened in the past (in connection with
the gang’s extortion) and found that Serrano and her children were being followed or
observed by people in a blue van outside their home after Salvador’s wake. But the IJ
made no mention of Serrano’s testimony that gang members came to the wake, questioned
her as to whether she knew the identity of her husband’s murderers, and specifically
threatened to kill her and her children if she went to the police about her husband’s murder.
The IJ also did not mention evidence that gang members inquired into her whereabouts
after she left her mother’s home and entered the United States. Accordingly, we are not
satisfied that the IJ adequately considered and addressed the evidence that Serrano’s
familial relationship with her husband may have been at least one central reason for the
persecution. See, e.g., Cruz v. Sessions, 853 F.3d 122, 129 (4th Cir. 2017) (holding that
the “BIA and IJ short-sightedly focused on [the persecutor’s] articulated purpose of

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preventing [petitioner] from contacting the police, while discounting the very relationship
that prompted her to search for her [missing] husband, to confront [the persecutor], and to
express her intent to contact the police”).
The IJ’s analysis of the third element is also deficient. The IJ recounts that Serrano
claims she did not go to the police about the gang because they were complicit but found
it significant that suspects were arrested but released because they were apparently masked.
However, the IJ does not grapple with Anibal’s statement that, after he specifically
identified three of the gang members who murdered Salvador, the police released them
from custody, stopped taking his calls, offered him no protection, and caused him to go
into hiding. And, again, the IJ appears to have either forgotten or ignored Serrano’s
testimony that gang members asked Serrano at the wake if she knew who killed her
husband and directly threatened to murder her and her children if she went to the police
about his murder. In this circuit, there is “no requirement that an applicant persist in
seeking governmental assistance when doing so (1) would have been futile or (2) have
subjected her to further abuse.” Orellana v. Barr, 925 F.3d 145, 153 (4th Cir. 2019)
(emphasis added) (cleaned up). Here, the IJ failed to consider the gang’s specific threat at
the wake or how it might have applied to the second exception.
Regarding Serrano’s claim that she suffered past persecution and has a well-founded
fear of future persecution on account of her membership in the PSG of Salvadoran women,
we are at a loss as to why the claim was ignored by the IJ and the BIA. Although we
express no opinion on the merits, Serrano was entitled to have it considered.

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Finally, Serrano’s claim for asylum based on her “anti-gang” political opinion rests
upon her argument that she was persecuted and would be subjected to future persecution,
because she and Salvador “went against the gang” when: (1) she rejected El Cruel’s sexual
advances; (2) she and Salvador confronted El Cruel; and (3) her husband refused to join
the gang. She argued that expert reports and country conditions reports support this claim.
The IJ’s evaluation of this claim consists of nothing more than a summary conclusion that
there was “little to no evidence that [Petitioners had] actually been persecuted on account
of the gangs seeking to overcome a view in which they see as antithetical to theirs.” J.A.
89. The IJ did not recite or address the specifics of the claim and did not mention the expert
reports and country conditions evidence.
In addition to these deficiencies, the record indicates that some of the factual
findings that were made are not supported by the record. For example, the IJ stated that
the murderers “apparently” wore masks as a possible reason why the police released
them—presumably in support of his conclusion that Petitioners failed to prove futility. But
Serrano stated that a female friend told her that she saw masked gang members in the area
at the time of the murder. The male eyewitness to the murder did not say that the murderers
were masked, and he identified three of the four gang members to police. Even if we
assume that this created a discrepancy in the evidence, the IJ did not address it at all.
The IJ also thought it significant that Serrano “admitted that other members in the
community received extortion demands.” J.A. 87. But Serrano testified that she did not
know if any other members of the community had been extorted; she only testified that she
was aware that it was common for El Salvadoran gangs to do so in her country. And while

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the IJ found that “gangs” had attempted to recruit her and her husband, we see no indication
that Serrano was ever recruited to become a member of any gang. Serrano testified that
the MS gang recruited her husband, murdered him shortly after he refused to join, and then
threatened her and her children with death if she went to the police for justice.
In affirming the IJ’s decision, the single-member BIA decision also fails to
meaningfully engage with Petitioners’ evidence and arguments and ignores Petitioners’
argument that the IJ failed to address Serrano’s PSG of Salvadoran women.
To conclude, we do not now find the evidence so compelling as to require the grant
of relief. But as we have explained, “applicant[s] for asylum [are] entitled to know that
agency adjudicators reviewed all [their] evidence, understood it, and had a cogent,
articulable basis for its determination that [their] evidence was insufficient.” Orellana, 925
F.3d at 153; see also Baharon v. Holder, 588 F.3d 228, 233 (4th Cir. 2009) (“Those who
flee persecution and seek refuge under our laws have the right to know that the evidence
they present . . . will be fairly considered and weighed by those who decide their fate.”).
Here, the opinions of the IJ and BIA fell far short of these expectations.
III.
For the reasons set forth above, we grant the petition for review, vacate the orders
denying Petitioners relief, and remand the case to the BIA for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion. On remand, the agency adjudicators must consider the
relevant, credible evidence in the record and articulate the basis for their decisions to either
grant or deny relief.
PETITION GRANTED; VACATED AND REMANDED

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