Juan Gonzalez-Flores v. Eric Holder, Jr.

MEMORANDUM

Carlos Adolfo Palencia, a native and citizen of Guatemala, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order dismissing his appeal from an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) decision denying his application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252 . We deny in part and grant in part the petition for review, and remand.

In his opening brief, Palencia failed to raise any substantive challenge to either the agency’s dispositive determination that his asylum claim was time-barred, or to the agency’s denial of his CAT claim. See Martinez-Serrano v. INS, 94 F.3d 1256, 1259-60 (9th Cir.1996).

In denying Palencia’s withholding of removal claim, the BIA found Palencia failed to establish past persecution or a fear of future persecution on account of a protected ground. When the IJ and BIA issued their decisions in this case they did not have the benefit of either this court’s decisions in Henriquez-Rivas v. Holder, 707 F.3d 1081 (9th Cir.2013) (en banc), and Cordoba v. Holder, 726 F.3d 1106 (9th Cir.2013), or the BIA’s decisions in Matter of M-E-V-G-, 26 I. & N.…