Zabala Mahecha: Indirect Family Threats and the Applicant’s Own Risk

Zabala Mahecha v. Bondi illustrates why threats against a partner and attacks on relatives must be connected to the applicant’s own past harm and future risk. In a January 8, 2026 nonprecedential memorandum, the Ninth Circuit denied review of an asylum and withholding decision involving a Colombian police officer’s partner and their daughter. The court evaluated this record under substantial-evidence review; it did not announce that indirect threats or harm to relatives can never support protection.

The court reviewed an agency denial, not a new evidentiary hearing

Zabala Mahecha v. Bondi, No. 25-832 (9th Cir. Jan. 8, 2026), is not precedent except as Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3 permits. The petition sought review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ order upholding an immigration judge’s denial of asylum, withholding of removal and Convention Against Torture protection. The daughter appeared as a derivative applicant. Mem. at 1–2.

The court applied substantial-evidence review to the asylum and withholding determinations. Evidence supporting another possible result was insufficient: Reversal required the record to compel the contrary conclusion. That distinction matters when reading the outcome as an evidence lesson. The court did not decide the claim from scratch or hold that the applicant’s fear was insincere. Id. at 2.

The threats were directed through a police-officer partner

The applicant’s longtime partner, the father of her daughter, worked as a police officer in Colombia. For her protection, she did not live with him after he became an officer in 2018. He worked in Norte de Santander and visited her in Bogota several times a year. After participating in the September 2021 arrest of a prominent FARC member, he received several threatening text messages demanding that he leave or resign and threatening him and close relatives. FARC later attacked and threatened his parents and sister. Id. at 3.

FARC had not directly threatened or confronted the applicant. The court concluded that this record did not compel a finding of her past persecution. Its explanation recognized that harm to close relatives can contribute to persecution when part of a pattern closely tied to the applicant. The absence of that demonstrated connection mattered here; the panel did not create a rule that only a personally delivered threat counts. Id. at 3–4.

A family connection and proof the persecutor knows it are different facts

The future-fear analysis focused on whether the record compelled an objectively reasonable fear of persecution of this applicant. The panel found no compelling evidence that FARC had a particular interest in her or knew of her connection to the police officer. It also noted that his grandfather remained in Bogota and that the grandfather’s April 2023 letter discussed the October 2021 incident only. Id. at 4.

These are specific evidentiary considerations, not findings that a relationship was legally irrelevant or that an unharmed relative always defeats asylum. A record may need to distinguish the existence of a relationship from evidence that the feared actor knows about it, can locate the applicant and retains an interest in harming that person. Old incidents and later corroboration should be described by their actual dates rather than treated as interchangeable proof of current risk.

Because the applicant failed to establish a well-founded fear for asylum on this record, the court also upheld the failure to establish withholding’s more demanding clear-probability showing. Id. at 4. The memorandum did not equate the two protection standards.

The government-response finding used several facts

The officer reported the threats to his superiors, who moved him to a safer work location. The court also considered country evidence about Colombian investigation and prosecution of criminal groups and the applicant’s own failure to report the threats. Taken together, the evidence did not compel reversal of the agency’s government-protection finding. Id. at 4–5.

Footnote 3 expressly states that nonreporting was a factor, not dispositive. The decision therefore does not establish a universal police-report prerequisite. Nor does an employer’s relocation of one threatened officer establish that every person facing the same group will receive adequate protection. The actual response, applicant’s circumstances and contrary evidence remain part of the individual record.

CAT and the proposed social group were not merits holdings

The applicant did not challenge denial of CAT protection, so that issue was waived. Id. at 2 n.1. Given the other grounds, the panel did not reach her challenge to the agency’s particular-social-group determination. Id. at 5 n.4. Neither point should be described as a new circuit holding rejecting CAT eligibility or a particular family group.

The petition was denied. The memorandum does not report a later custody or removal outcome. Compare our family-nexus evidence guide, which addresses protected-ground motive as a separate question, and our immigration-defense practice for reviewing the actual agency record.