Maldonado-Ruiz v. Bondi

── Maldonado-Ruiz v. Bondi ── Case No.: 25-1448 Court: Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Date: March 10, 2026 Category: General United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 25-1448 CLARIXA MALDONADO-RUIZ, Petitioner, v. PAMELA J. BONDI, Attorney General, Respondent. PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS Before Aframe, Lynch, and Dunlap, Circuit Judges. Kristian R. Meyer, Kevin P. MacMurray, and MacMurray & Associates on brief for petitioner. Monica G. Antoun, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Brett A. Shumate, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, and Shelley R. Goad, Assistant Director, Office of Immigration Litigation, on brief for respondent. March 10, 2026  LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Clarixa Oneyda Maldonado Ruiz, who is a native and citizen of Honduras and who entered the United States without inspection over a dozen years ago, petitions for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") dismissing her appeal from the Immigration Judge's ("IJ") denial of her applications for asylum and withholding of removal, based largely on her testimony that she is bisexual. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1158(b)(1)(A), 1231(b)(3)(A). We deny the petition because she has shown neither past persecution nor a nexus to her claimed particular social groups ("PSGs"), and has not established that the Honduran government would be unwilling or unable to protect her from private actors. We have no need to reach the issue of whether her claimed PSGs are viable, and so we do not do so. I. A. Maldonado-Ruiz entered the United States without inspection on or about March 12, 2012, at or near Hidalgo, Texas. On August 1, 2012, the Department of Homeland Security filed a Notice to Appear charging her with removability pursuant to § 212(a)(6)(A)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Maldonado-Ruiz, through counsel, conceded that she was removable and filed applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture ("CAT"). On April 4, 2022, she testified at a merits hearing before the IJ and - 2 - also relied on her July 22, 2021, written declaration and certain documentary evidence previously submitted to the IJ.1 Maldonado-Ruiz was born in 1982 in Tela, Honduras. When she was five years old, her family moved within Honduras to San Cristóbal. She did not know her father until age seven. During her childhood, he lived in the United States and periodically returned to Honduras and stayed at her family's home. Then, he came to the home drunk, argued with her mother, and at times forced the family out of the house. He once attempted to throw a television at her mother and, on another occasion, choked her sister. When Maldonado-Ruiz was eight or nine years old, her father struck her back with the metal part of a belt, as punishment for jumping on a bed.2 No report was made to the police. Around age nine, Maldonado-Ruiz witnessed a neighbor shoot and kill Maldonado-Ruiz's brother-in-law when the brother- in-law confronted the neighbor. Maldonado-Ruiz stated that the 1 Maldonado-Ruiz submitted country conditions materials to the IJ, including reports from the U.S. State Department, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other sources describing discrimination and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, an