Cerritos Rivas: A Property Motive and an Unchallenged CAT Finding Defeated Review

The Fourth Circuit denied review in Cerritos Rivas v. Bondi because the record permitted the agency to find a criminal property-taking motive rather than a protected-ground motive, and the CAT appeal did not challenge an independently decisive finding about the likelihood of future torture. The court did not decide that family-based social groups are categorically invalid, that property disputes can never involve persecution, or that denial of asylum automatically defeats CAT.

The underlying harm and the agency’s decisions

The applicant sought asylum, withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture after violence and threats against his family in El Salvador. The evidence described a criminal actor’s effort to obtain the family’s land and cattle, the family’s departure, and an extended period without direct threats or encounters after relocation. Family testimony also connected the feared actor’s conduct to obtaining and retaining the property. The court treated that testimony as evidence about motive; it did not minimize the seriousness of the violence. Cerritos Rivas, opinion at 2–3, 8–10.

The immigration judge assumed the proposed groups—family members and male landowners—were cognizable, but found no required connection between group membership and the feared harm. The BIA upheld the no-nexus finding and declined to reach additional group and future-persecution arguments because nexus was dispositive. On CAT, it upheld the finding that the applicant had not shown the required likelihood of future torture and noted that the appeal had not meaningfully challenged that prediction. Cerritos Rivas, opinion at 5–6.

The court reviewed the agency’s finding, not a fresh asylum trial

The court applied substantial-evidence review to factual findings and reviewed legal conclusions anew. Because the BIA had issued its own reasoning without adopting the immigration judge’s opinion, review focused on the Board’s decision. Reversal of the factual determination required a record compelling a contrary conclusion, not merely one supporting another plausible interpretation. Cerritos Rivas, opinion at 6–8.

That distinction explains the result. The court did not independently select the most persuasive motive from scratch. It asked whether a rational factfinder could accept the agency’s account of why the criminal actor targeted the family. The applicant therefore needed to confront the evidence supporting that account, rather than rely only on the gravity of the harm or the legal acceptability of the proposed groups.

Why family membership did not resolve motive

The court recognized that a threat mentioning a relative does not necessarily establish harm because of family membership. The agency could reasonably read this record as showing threats against people who stood between the criminal actor and valuable property. Testimony that the actor wanted to own everything, targeted others as well, took the property after the family fled, and did not continue direct threats supported that reading. Cerritos Rivas, opinion at 8–10.

This was not a rule requiring every persecutor to announce hatred of a family. Nor did the opinion exclude mixed motives in every case. Its holding was that these particular facts did not compel rejection of the agency’s criminal-greed explanation. The court left the proposed groups’ cognizability unresolved because a favorable answer to that question would not cure the separate nexus failure.

The CAT claim failed for a different reason

CAT required its own assessment of the probability of torture and the required official involvement or acquiescence. The applicant’s court brief concentrated on whether public officials would acquiesce. But the agency had separately found that torture was not sufficiently likely, and the brief did not challenge that finding. Winning the official-acquiescence argument alone would therefore leave the likelihood ground intact. Cerritos Rivas, opinion at 10–11.

The distinction is practical, not just technical. Evidence of police corruption does not necessarily show that a particular person is likely to be tortured; evidence of a personal threat does not necessarily establish government acquiescence. An appeal needs to identify which adverse findings independently support the result and address each one that matters.

Disposition, jurisdiction and limits

The January 9, 2026 unpublished per curiam opinion denied the petition. It is not binding precedent even in the Fourth Circuit, and it is not Ninth Circuit authority for California proceedings. In particular, readers should not transfer its discussion of asylum and withholding nexus thresholds into California practice without examining controlling Ninth Circuit law. Our Mejia-Morales analysis explains that circuit’s separate treatment of those standards.

The useful contribution here is narrower: It shows how the agency’s chosen rationale, the reviewing court’s deferential factual standard, and an unchallenged independent CAT ground can determine an appeal. Our CAT appeal guide explains how to map those grounds to the actual decision and record without treating a general country report as an answer to every element.