Pazine v. Garland, No. 23-1894 (1st Cir. 2024)
In Pazine v. Garland, No. 23-1894 (1st Cir. 2024), Eucineia Soares da Silva Pazine, a Brazilian national, sought asylum in the United States, claiming she faced persecution from her abusive husband, Lucas Luiz Pazine, and his associates. After returning to Brazil with their children, Pazine testified that she continued to face threats from Lucas’s cousin Dulce and his lawyers, including surveillance and attempts to coerce her into giving up custody of her children and property.
An Immigration Judge (IJ) found Pazine’s testimony credible but denied her asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The IJ concluded that the abuse Pazine suffered in the United States did not qualify as persecution under asylum law, which requires harm to occur in the applicant’s home country. Furthermore, the threats from Dulce and the lawyers were seen as stemming from personal disputes over custody and property, not from her membership in a particular social group (PSG), such as “Brazilian Women.”
The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) upheld the IJ’s decision, agreeing that there was no nexus between the threats Pazine feared and a protected ground under asylum law. The BIA supported the IJ’s finding that the threats were related to personal disputes, not her gender or PSG membership, and declined to address Pazine’s “pattern or practice” theory of persecution, as it had not been raised before the IJ.
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reviewed the case and denied Pazine’s petition for review. The court found that substantial evidence supported the IJ and BIA’s conclusion that the threats were motivated by personal disputes rather than by her membership in a PSG. The court also upheld the BIA’s application of the “one central reason” standard, which requires that persecution be motivated by a protected ground such as race, religion, nationality, or membership in a PSG. Therefore, Pazine’s claims for asylum and related relief were denied.
