Jesus Fabian Cruz-Arias v. PAMELA J. BONDI, Attorney General of the United States

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted November 12, 2025*
Decided December 29, 2025
Before
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Chief Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
No. 25-1416
JESUS FABIAN CRUZ-ARIAS,
Petitioner,
v.
PAMELA J. BONDI, Attorney General
of the United States,
Respondent.
Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals.
No. A206-304-699
O R D E R
Jesus Fabian Cruz-Arias, a native and citizen of Mexico, challenges the denial of
his claims for withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against
Torture (“CAT”)†. In rejecting his first claim, the Board of Immigration Appeals
* We decided the case without oral argument because the briefs and record
adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not have
significantly aided the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
† Cruz-Arias does not challenge the Immigration Judge’s denial of his asylum
claim.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 25-1416 Page 2
(“Board”) agreed with the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) that Cruz-Arias failed to show a
likelihood of sufficient harm or that the harm would be motivated by his membership
in his putative particular social group of Mexican landowners and their extended
family. The Board also agreed with the IJ that Cruz-Arias did not adequately show he
would suffer torture upon returning to Mexico or that any such torture would involve
government acquiescence. Finding no error in this analysis, we dismiss Cruz-Arias’s
petition for review.
At his merits hearing before the IJ, Cruz-Arias described three incidents to
support his claims. First, in 2002, cartel members kidnapped his maternal uncle while
he was travelling between two towns. The gang members held Cruz-Arias’s uncle for
two days, though they neither “tortured [n]or hurt” him. The family paid a ransom and
the gang members set the uncle free. The family did not notify police but orally related
the incident to a local public official. Cartel members have not threatened the uncle
since then. Cruz-Arias says he left Mexico a few years later, entering the United States
in March 2006.
Cruz-Arias vaguely relayed a second incident in which an unidentified person
asked for a different uncle of his, and that uncle went into hiding for a period. The
family members did not report the incident, which allegedly occurred in 2009, to the
police. In a third incident, which Cruz-Arias heard about after arriving in the United
States, unidentified persons kidnapped Cruz-Arias’s cousin as he was driving, and
Cruz-Arias’s family paid a ransom to release the cousin. In addition to his own
testimony, Cruz-Arias offered a letter from his brother attesting to components of his
account and reports on conditions in Mexico.
After the IJ rejected his claims in a July 2020 hearing, the Board affirmed in a
February 2025 decision and dismissed Cruz-Arias’s appeal. Cruz-Arias petitions for our
review.
“We review the immigration judge’s order as modified by the Board.” Martinez-
Martinez v. Bondi, 147 F.4th 831, 835 (7th Cir. 2025). In doing so, “[w]e review legal
determinations de novo and uphold factual findings so long as they are supported by
substantial evidence.” Mateo-Mateo v. Garland, 124 F.4th 470, 474 (7th Cir. 2024) (citing
Borjas Cruz v. Garland, 96 F.4th 1000, 1004 (7th Cir. 2024)). Under this “highly
deferential” standard for factual findings, “[w]e will reverse only if the evidence
‘compels’ a different result, not simply if it ‘supports’ one.” de Paz-Peraza v. Bondi, 140
F.4th 390, 394 (7th Cir. 2025) (first quoting Jamal-Daoud v. Gonzales, 403 F.3d 918, 922 (7th

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No. 25-1416 Page 3
Cir. 2005); and then quoting INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481 n.1 (1992)); see 8
U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B).
To qualify for withholding of removal, an applicant must “establish that his or
her life or freedom would be threatened in the proposed country of removal on account
of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political
opinion.” 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(b) (2015). The threat to the applicant’s life or freedom “must
be attributable either to the government or to a nongovernmental entity that the
government is unable or unwilling to control.” Almutairi v. Holder, 722 F.3d 996, 1002
(7th Cir. 2013). If “the applicant is determined to have suffered past persecution in the
proposed country of removal on account of” a protected characteristic, he enjoys a
presumption that he will face threats to his life or freedom upon returning to the
country of removal. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(b)(1)(i). Cruz-Arias claims the Board and IJ
improperly denied him this presumption by inadequately considering the history of
criminal conduct against members of his family that amounted to persecution.
The Board and IJ addressed and rejected Cruz-Arias’s arguments, and there was
more than substantial evidence supporting their findings that Cruz-Arias did not
establish past persecution. As noted by the IJ and the Board, Cruz-Arias testified that he
had never been harmed in Mexico, physically or in a manner indicative of persecution.
The evidence Cruz-Arias points to is unavailing because the Board and IJ noted its
shortcomings, including that the evidence was highly attenuated from harm to Cruz-
Arias. While the presumption applies if “the applicant is determined to have suffered
past persecution,” id. (emphasis added), none of the three incidents involved harm
directed at or related to Cruz-Arias. Harm unrelated to Cruz-Arias certainly does not
compel reversal. See Zhou Ji Ni v. Holder, 635 F.3d 1014, 1018 (7th Cir. 2011) (“In general,
an asylum applicant cannot rely on ‘derivative persecution’ to establish that he was
subjected to persecution in the past.”). Nor would attenuated harm rise to persecution
of Cruz-Arias. See Stanojkova v. Holder, 645 F.3d 943, 948 (7th Cir. 2011).
Absent the presumption, Cruz-Arias must show that he has a reasonable fear of
future persecution. Lozano-Zuniga v. Lynch, 832 F.3d 822, 827 (7th Cir. 2016). In order to
do so, he “must set forth specific evidence indicating that it would be more likely than
not that he would be individually targeted for harm.” Id. at 828. The Board and IJ found
that Cruz-Arias failed to establish a likelihood of future harm to support his claim for
withholding of removal. In reaching this conclusion, the Board noted the paucity of
evidence of harm to Cruz-Arias, that the most recent incident for which Cruz-Arias
provided a date occurred over a decade ago, and that none of the harm he described

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involved those most similarly situated to Cruz-Arias, his direct family members—who
continued to live in Mexico without incident. Cruz-Arias again points to the evidence of
crimes against family members and evidence of Mexico’s current conditions, but the
Board and IJ considered and addressed those arguments. The Board reasonably
concluded, as described above, that Cruz-Arias’s evidence failed to show a likelihood of
future harm. The Board also noted that the country conditions report was not
particularized to Cruz-Arias and that Cruz-Arias did not make the expert who drafted
one of the reports available for cross-examination. See Granados Arias v. Garland, 69 F.4th
454, 464 (7th Cir. 2023). We identify no error in the Board and IJ finding Cruz-Arias
failed to show he faced a “clear probability” of future threats in Mexico. See W.G.A. v.
Sessions, 900 F.3d 957, 965 (7th Cir. 2018) (“clear probability” is requisite likelihood of
harm for withholding of removal).
Cruz-Arias also challenges the findings of the Board and IJ that, regardless of
whether he showed the requisite harm, he failed to show another requirement for his
withholding of removal claim, that his future harm would occur “on account of … [his]
membership in a particular social group.” 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(b). An applicant claiming
membership in a particular social group “must (1) identify a cognizable social group to
which she belongs and (2) establish a nexus between any past or feared future harm and
her membership in that social group.” Borjas Cruz, 96 F.4th at 1004. Under the nexus
requirement, an applicant must demonstrate a “causal link” between the persecution
and his or her membership in the alleged particular social group. See Casas v. Garland, 47
F.4th 548, 553 (7th Cir. 2022).
The Board found that, regardless of whether “Mexican landowners and their
extended family” was a cognizable particular social group, Cruz-Arias failed to show a
nexus because the evidence instead showed gangs targeted Cruz-Arias’s family
members on account of their wealth. Cruz-Arias’s own testimony grounded his fear of
future harm in gang members’ perception of his wealth, and there was no evidence
gang members find his family ties to landowners offensive. And, as we have explained,
“wealth, standing alone, is not an immutable characteristic of a cognizable social
group,” Orellana-Arias v. Sessions, 865 F.3d 476, 485 (7th Cir. 2017) (quoting Dominguez-
Pulido v. Lynch, 821 F.3d 837, 845 (7th Cir. 2016)) (collecting cases), so evidence of a
nexus must “show a motive sufficiently distinct from perceived wealth,” Granados Arias,
69 F.4th at 464.
According to Cruz-Arias, the Board’s conclusion that gangs targeted his family
for money ignored the gang members’ deeper motivation: his family members’ land

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No. 25-1416 Page 5
ownership. This argument fails because Cruz-Arias did not support his claim that cartel
members targeted his family specifically as the extended family of landowners rather
than on account of wealth. See id. Where an applicant claims membership in a group of
small business owners, for example, he must provide evidence supporting a “particular
animus toward small business owners as small business owners.” Id. (quoting Melnik v.
Sessions, 891 F.3d 278, 287 (7th Cir. 2018)). The Board correctly noted that Cruz-Arias
made no such showing.
We also reject Cruz-Arias’s claim that the Board improperly reasoned that some
of his family members in Mexico remained unharmed. This misrepresents the record.
The Board considered the safety of Cruz-Arias’s family in assessing the likelihood of
future harm to him, not in determining he failed to establish a nexus. Therefore, we
need not more thoroughly consider his attempt to analogize to W.G.A., 900 F.3d at 967.
Next, Cruz-Arias challenges the denial of his CAT claim. “To receive protection
under the CAT, an applicant must show that there is ‘a “substantial risk” that [he]
would be tortured if forced to return’” to his country of nationality. Granados Arias, 69
F.4th at 466 (quoting Meraz-Saucedo v. Rosen, 986 F.3d 676, 686 (7th Cir. 2021)). An
applicant for CAT protection must show “the torture was inflicted by or at the behest
of, or with the consent or acquiescence of, a public official.” Lozano-Zuniga, 832 F.3d at
830. An applicant shows acquiescence by demonstrating “the public official, prior to the
activity constituting torture, ha[d] awareness of such activity and thereafter breach[ed]
his or her legal responsibility to intervene to prevent such activity.” Id. at 831 (quoting
Lopez v. Lynch, 810 F.3d 484, 493 (7th Cir. 2016)). Torture constitutes the “intentional
infliction of ‘severe pain or suffering’ for the purpose of coercion, punishment, or
discrimination”; it “does not include ‘lesser forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment.’” Id. at 830 (quoting Borovsky v. Holder, 612 F.3d 917, 923 (7th
Cir. 2010)).
Reviewing for substantial evidence, we see no error in the Board finding Cruz-
Arias’s claim of torture too speculative, especially given the prior finding Cruz-Arias
failed to show a sufficient likelihood his life or freedom would be threatened. See P.A.-
V. v. Bondi, 148 F.4th 511, 520 (7th Cir. 2025) (“Because P.A.-V. has not established a
clear probability of future persecution under the [Immigration and Nationality Act], he
cannot meet the higher burden of showing a likelihood of torture required for CAT
relief.” (citing Khan v. Filip, 554 F.3d 681, 692 (7th Cir. 2009))). The record indicates Cruz-
Arias’s parents and siblings live in Mexico unharmed, that Cruz-Arias himself had
never been harmed or threatened, and that the fears Cruz-Arias invoked were of

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financially motivated crime. Similar to Cruz-Arias’s withholding of removal claim,
“evidence about generalized violence or danger within a country is not sufficient to
make a claim that it is more likely than not that a petitioner would be tortured upon
return to his home country.” Lozano-Zuniga, 832 F.3d at 830–31 (citing cases). Moreover,
there was no evidence anyone in Mexico had a present intent to target Cruz-Arias
should he return, that Cruz-Arias feared any government actors, or that a government
actor would acquiescence to Cruz-Arias’s torture specifically. And although the reports
from Cruz-Arias’s expert on Mexico’s conditions showed cartel violence and some
corruption within state security forces, that evidence did not show Cruz-Arias himself
would be victimized or that any crime would rise to torture. See Lenjinac v. Holder, 780
F.3d 852, 856 (7th Cir. 2015) (“[R]eports that torture occurs in a foreign country … are
insufficient … without evidence that the petitioner will be tortured if he returns.”). Cruz-
Arias’s assertion the Board and IJ did not adequately consider cartel violence and
corruption is also belied by the record. As the Board referenced, a “general fear of
growing corruption and gang activity is insufficient to prove acquiescence.” Meraz-
Saucedo, 986 F.3d at 687.
For the reasons discussed, we DENY Cruz-Arias’s petition for review.

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