Juan Torres v. Loretta E. Lynch

MEMORANDUM

The facts and procedural posture of this case are known to the parties, and we do not repeat them here. Petitioner Juan Manuel Torres petitions for review of the BIA’s affirmance of an IJ’s denial of asylum, withholding of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act, withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), and deferral of removal under the CAT. “We review factual findings of the BIA for substantial evidence,” and we will uphold such findings “unless the evidence compels a contrary result.” Gallegos-Vasquez v. Holder, 636 F.3d 1181, 1184 (9th Cir.2011). We dismiss the petition in part and deny it in part.

With respect to Torres’s claim that the IJ and BIA erred in determining that his child pornography conviction constituted a “particularly serious crime,” we have jurisdiction to address questions of law but not the agency’s discretionary weighing of the relevant factors. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252 (a)(2)(C), (D); Pechenkov v. Holder, 705 F.3d 444, 447-48 (9th Cir.2012). We thus reject on the merits Torres’s claim that the agency committed legal error by failing to consider the factors set out in Matter of Frentescu, 18 I. & N. Dec. 244, 247…