Maurilio De Souza v. Gonzales

MEMORANDUM *

Luiz Maurilio De Souza petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) summary affirmance of the immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his application for withholding of removal. We grant in part and deny in part the petition for review.

We grant Maurilio De Souza’s petition for review of the denial of his application for withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). In this case, the IJ required individualized rather than generalized proof that the government would acquiesce in third-party torture. This specificity requirement is ultra vires to congressional intent as established in Zheng v. Ashcroft, 332 F.3d 1186, 1194-96 (9th Cir.2003). A CAT applicant can prove willful blindness to and, thus, acquiescence in third-party torture by showing that the government in the country of removal is generally unwilling or unable to prevent the third party’s torturous acts. Id. at 1195 & n. 8; Ornelas-Chavez v. Gonzales, 458 F.3d 1052, 1060 (9th Cir. 2006) (“It is enough that public officials could have inferred the alleged torture was taking place, remained willfully blind to it, or simply stood by because of their inability or…