Axel Perez-Perez v. PAMELA BONDI, Attorney General

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
File Name: 25a0428n.06
No. 25-3194
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
AXEL PEREZ-PEREZ,
Petitioner,
v.
PAMELA BONDI, Attorney General,
Respondent.
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ON PETITION FOR REVIEW
FROM THE UNITED STATES
BOARD OF IMMIGRATION
APPEALS
OPINION
Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; BATCHELDER and LARSEN, Circuit Judges.
LARSEN, Circuit Judge. Axel Perez-Perez entered the United States without valid
immigration documents. An immigration judge (IJ) denied his claims for withholding of removal
and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and ordered Perez-Perez removed
from the country. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed. Perez-Perez now petitions
for review. We DENY his petition.
I.
Axel Perez-Perez, a native and citizen of Guatemala, entered the United States illegally in
2016. The Department of Homeland Security served Perez-Perez with a Notice to Appear charging
him with being removable as an alien present in the United States without valid immigration
documents. Perez-Perez conceded removability but applied for relief in the form of withholding
of removal and CAT protection. Perez-Perez testified in support of his applications for relief,
claiming that he feared returning to Guatemala because he would be harmed by members of a
criminal gang. The IJ denied Perez-Perez’s applications for relief and ordered him removed to

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No. 25-3194, Perez-Perez v. Bondi
Guatemala. Perez-Perez appealed to the BIA. The BIA dismissed his appeal, concluding that
Perez-Perez had waived review of his CAT-protection claim and had failed to establish that the IJ
erred by denying him withholding of removal. Perez-Perez now petitions for review, challenging
only the agency’s decision to deny him withholding of removal.
II.
We review the BIA’s decision as the final agency determination, except that we review the
IJ’s reasoning “[t]o the extent the BIA adopted” it. Khalili v. Holder, 557 F.3d 429, 435 (6th Cir.
2009). The IJ gave two reasons for concluding that Perez-Perez had failed to establish entitlement
to withholding of removal: (1) Perez-Perez was not credible, and (2) Perez-Perez failed to
establish a nexus between his feared harm and his membership in a particular social group.
Before the BIA, Perez-Perez challenged only the adverse credibility determination. He
didn’t challenge the IJ’s nexus determination. The BIA noted the failure, concluding that although
Perez-Perez had broadly referenced nexus in his Notice of Appeal, he failed to “specifically
address[] [the] matter[] in his appellate brief,” so the issue was “waived.” AR 4.
Perez-Perez’s failure to challenge the IJ’s nexus determination before the BIA is fatal to
his petition. Congress has limited our authority to review immigration appeals. See 8 U.S.C.
§ 1252(d). We may review a final order of removal only if “the alien has exhausted all
administrative remedies.” Id. § 1252(d)(1); see also Mazariegos-Rodas v. Garland, 122 F.4th 655,
664 (6th Cir. 2024). To exhaust administrative remedies, the petitioner “must present the specific
issue that [he] seek[s] to raise in court” to the BIA. Singh v. Rosen, 984 F.3d 1142, 1155 (6th Cir.
2021). When, as here, the government has raised the alien’s failure to comply with the exhaustion
requirement, we must enforce it. Mazariegos-Rodas, 122 F.4th at 664. The BIA correctly
concluded that Perez-Perez failed to challenge the nexus determination, so our review of that issue

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No. 25-3194, Perez-Perez v. Bondi
is foreclosed. Because the IJ’s nexus determination was an independent, dispositive reason to deny
Perez-Perez’s application for withholding of removal, his petition for review fails. See Hih v.
Lynch, 812 F.3d 551, 556 (6th Cir. 2016).
Perez-Perez counters that he raised the nexus issue in his Notice of Appeal. But raising an
issue in a Notice of Appeal is insufficient to preserve it for appeal when the petitioner files a brief
before the BIA. In that circumstance, “the issue must be reasonably developed in the petitioner’s
brief to the BIA.” Khalili, 557 F.3d at 433; see also Cuevas-Nuno v. Barr, 969 F.3d 331, 334 (6th
Cir. 2020) (“We look to the alien’s brief before the BIA to determine which claims the alien
adequately raised before that body.”). Perez-Perez failed to do so. As a result, Perez-Perez has
failed to exhaust his challenges to the IJ’s nexus determination.
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We DENY the petition for review.

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