Loya-Loya

MEMORANDUM **

In three consolidated petitions, Hector Loya-Loya and Francisco Chavez-Arguelles petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA’s) affirmance of the Immigration Judge’s (IJ’s) denial of petitioners’ applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) (Petition Nos. 03-74607 and 03-74608), and the BIA’s denial of petitioners’ joint motion to reopen (Petition No. 04-74012). We address the petitions in reverse order.

I. Motion to Reopen Petition (No. 04-74012)

In denying petitioners’ motion to reopen, the BIA found that “nothing in the respondent’s [sic] submission addresses the findings of the Immigration Judge that the respondents had not met the burden of proof for asylum.” The record contradicts the BIA’s finding.

Petitioners submitted as Attachment K to their motion to reopen a 1999 report prepared for the Immigration and Naturalization Service entitled “Mexico: Update on treatment of homosexuals,” a more recent and detailed report on the treatment of homosexuals in Mexico than the 1997 country report considered by the IJ. In the motion to reopen itself, petitioners discussed the merits of their…