1. Introduction

Fuentes-Pineda v. Bondi addresses a recurring question in CAT litigation: when can brutal or life-threatening prison conditions in a foreign country qualify as “torture” attributable to the government, and how does a petitioner prove an individualized likelihood of torture when the evidence suggests widespread harshness but uncertain targeting?

Jose Fuentes-Pineda, a native and citizen of El Salvador, is a former Barrio 18 (“18th Street”) gang member with visible tattoos and a Salvadoran murder conviction. He testified that Salvadoran police officers tortured him on two occasions in the past. He sought CAT deferral, asserting that El Salvador’s “state of exception” and harsh detention conditions made it more likely than not he would be tortured if returned.

The Immigration Judge (IJ) found Fuentes-Pineda generally credible but denied CAT protection, concluding (i) Salvadoran prison conditions—though severe—were not shown to be specifically intended by the government to inflict torture, and (ii) the risk that he personally would be tortured again was speculative. The BIA adopted and affirmed. The Fifth Circuit denied review.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Fifth Circuit upheld the BIA/IJ denial of CAT deferral on two independent grounds:

• No compelled finding of “specific intent” behind prison conditions. Substantial evidence supported the IJ’s conclusion that El Salvador’s harsh prison conditions, including overcrowding and deprivation, were not shown to be specifically intended by the government to inflict severe pain or suffering.
• Individualized risk remained speculative. Even accepting that police tortured Fuentes-Pineda twice in the past, the court agreed the IJ could reasonably conclude that future torture—especially by the same officers or through targeted acts beyond general detention—was speculative, particularly given intervening conditions and the petitioner’s prior long imprisonment without torture.

The court also addressed jurisdiction/mootness: although Fuentes-Pineda had already been removed, the petition was not moot due to “collateral legal consequences,” relying on Mendoza-Flores v. Rosen.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited and Their Role

The opinion’s structure is built on two doctrinal pillars: (i) the CAT “specific intent” requirement and (ii) highly deferential review of factual determinations in CAT cases.

• Gjetani v. Barr: Establishes that when the BIA adopts the IJ’s reasoning, the court reviews the IJ decision as well. This procedural rule mattered because the Fifth Circuit evaluated the IJ’s detailed country-conditions analysis directly.
• Morales v. Garland: Reiterates standards of review—legal questions de novo, factual findings for substantial evidence—framing the petitioner’s heavy burden on appeal.
• Nasrallah v. Barr: Central to the court’s posture: CAT factual challenges receive “highly deferential” review. This principle effectively means the petitioner must show not merely that the record could support a different conclusion, but that it compels one.
• Hernandez v. Garland (9th Cir.): Cited for the proposition that “torture” requires a greater showing of harm than persecution, reinforcing the narrowness of CAT’s definition.
• Aviles-Tavera v. Garland: Used to emphasize the requirement of “sufficient state action” (official involvement, instigation, consent, or acquiescence) as part of a CAT claim.
• Morales-Morales v. Barr: Quoted for the regulatory definition of torture, especially “intentionally inflicted” and the requirement of official involvement. This anchors the court’s rejection of claims resting on negligence or generalized harshness.
• Sevoian v. Ashcroft (3rd Cir.): Cited for the crucial limitation that even “cruel and inhuman behavior” by officials may fall short of CAT torture where the specific-intent element is not met.
• Munoz-Granados v. Barr and Zhang v. Gonzales: Provide the Fifth Circuit’s articulation of the “compel” standard: reversal is appropriate only when evidence is so compelling that any reasonable factfinder would have to find eligibility.
• Matter of J-E- (BIA 2002) (en banc): The centerpiece for prison-conditions claims. The IJ (and Fifth Circuit) relied on its holding that torture requires “specific intent” to inflict severe pain or suffering; “rough and deplorable treatment” and “isolated acts of torture” are insufficient to transform harsh detention conditions into CAT torture absent evidence of intentional design.
• Gibson v. Collier and M.A. v. INS (4th Cir. en banc): Invoked to caution about advocacy reports and contested narratives: human-rights organizations “may have their own agendas,” and such materials may reflect “one side” of a debate. The point was not to exclude such evidence, but to justify why the IJ could weigh it as non-dispositive.
• Matter of A-A-R- (BIA 2025): Functioned as a modern doctrinal bridge to current El Salvador conditions. The opinion draws from it in three ways: (i) advertising harsh conditions as deterrence does not equal intent to torture; (ii) political rhetoric may reflect “moral judgment” and political messaging rather than a torture policy; and (iii) U.S. State Department country reports are “highly probative evidence.”
• Kazlauskas v. INS (9th Cir.): Cited to underscore the evidentiary weight of State Department country reports as a premier source on country conditions.
• Gonzales-Veliz v. Barr: Supports the proposition that “speculation alone” cannot compel reversal of an IJ’s risk assessment—important to rejecting the claim that the same officers would torture him again.
• Mendoza-Flores v. Rosen and Arulnanthy v. Garland: Used to establish jurisdiction despite removal, based on collateral consequences such as inadmissibility.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

The court’s reasoning turns on the CAT’s two most litigated elements: (1) specific intent and (2) individualized likelihood, both filtered through substantial-evidence deference.

A. “Specific intent” as the boundary between harshness and torture

The Fifth Circuit accepted the IJ’s explicit finding that the record did not show El Salvador’s “dismal and harmful conditions of detention” were “specifically intended to torture.” The opinion treats this not as a moral judgment about prison conditions, but as a legal classification problem: CAT is not a remedy for all state-caused suffering; it is limited to severe pain or suffering intentionally inflicted for purposes like coercion, intimidation, punishment, or discrimination.

The IJ’s analysis—affirmed as reasonable—distinguished between:

• Negligence/overcrowding/resource failures (even if foreseeable and deadly) and
• a deliberate policy to inflict severe pain or suffering.

Evidence such as reported deaths in custody, underreporting, and overcrowding was treated as consistent with negligence or systemic failure, not necessarily with a torture design. The opinion thus operationalizes Matter of J-E-: even extreme, degrading, or life-threatening detention conditions do not satisfy CAT unless the petitioner can tie those conditions to an intent to inflict severe pain or suffering.

B. Evaluating record evidence: advocacy reports, official rhetoric, and State Department reports

The court approved a “whole record” approach where the IJ: (i) considered an Amnesty International report alleging torture was common based on 83 interviews, (ii) noted political and social-media rhetoric celebrating harsh treatment of gang members, and (iii) weighed countervailing evidence that officials have been prosecuted and trained, and that U.S. State Department reports described “credible steps” to punish abuses.

Two moves are notable:

• “Common” does not equal “more likely than not.” Even if abuse is widespread, CAT still requires a probability determination; the IJ could conclude the evidence did not establish a clear probability of torture.
• Deterrence messaging ≠ torture intent. Relying on Matter of A-A-R-, the court accepted that publicizing harsh conditions can be consistent with deterrence or political messaging and still fall short of “specific intent” to inflict torture—especially where the record also shows efforts (even imperfect) to punish abuses.

C. Individualized risk: past torture and gang markers did not compel a future-torture finding

Fuentes-Pineda’s strongest evidence was personal: two prior episodes of police torture, plus visible gang tattoos and a history of encounters with Salvadoran authorities. The Fifth Circuit nonetheless upheld the IJ’s conclusion that future torture was speculative.

The analysis is individualized and comparative:

• Past torture is relevant but not dispositive. The IJ acknowledged it as “one factor,” but noted Fuentes-Pineda was not tortured during an 11-year prison term and had other police encounters involving mistreatment that did not rise to torture.
• Targeting uncertainty matters. The IJ found it “too speculative” that the same officers would be involved again—consistent with Gonzales-Veliz v. Barr.
• State of exception could cut against individualized torture. The court endorsed the IJ’s reasoning that broader detention authority may reduce incentives for coercive violence to extract confessions; if the state can detain gang affiliates readily, the need to torture a particular person for investigative purposes may be diminished.

3.3 Impact

Fuentes-Pineda is significant less because it invents a brand-new doctrinal test and more because it consolidates (and tightens in application) an evidentiary pathway that many CAT applicants attempt to use: proving torture risk primarily through systemic prison brutality.

• Reinforced barrier for prison-conditions CAT claims: Petitioners challenging removal to countries with notorious detention conditions must marshal evidence of purposeful infliction, not merely foreseeably deadly or degrading conditions. Death statistics, overcrowding, and generalized reports—without clearer proof of intent—may be treated as insufficient under Matter of J-E-.
• Greater emphasis on source-weighting and corroboration: The opinion signals that IJs may discount NGO reporting when sample sizes are small or the broader record is contested, while giving substantial weight to State Department reports (echoing Matter of A-A-R- and Kazlauskas v. INS).
• Individualized proof remains essential even with past abuse: Past torture does not automatically translate into future probability—especially when intervening imprisonment occurred without torture or when perpetrator continuity (same officers) is uncertain.
• Strategic implications for litigants: Applicants will likely need more granular evidence connecting conditions to policy (orders, patterns tied to official objectives, systematic intentional deprivation) and connecting their personal profile to a distinct risk (e.g., documented targeting lists, warrants, prior named perpetrators with continued authority, credible evidence of re-identification and retaliatory intent).

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• “Deferral of removal” (CAT): A limited protection that prevents removal to a particular country where torture is likely. It does not confer permanent lawful status and can be revisited if conditions change.
• “More likely than not”: A probability threshold—greater than 50%—that torture will occur upon removal.
• “Torture” under CAT (regulatory definition): Not any severe hardship. It must be severe pain or suffering that is intentionally inflicted, and it must occur with official involvement (by, at the instigation of, or with the consent/acquiescence of a public official).
• “Specific intent”: The government (or officials) must mean to inflict the severe pain or suffering—foreseeing that harm will happen, or being negligent about deadly conditions, is not enough if the factfinder concludes the purpose was not to cause severe pain or suffering.
• “Substantial evidence” review: On appeal, the court does not decide what it would find in the first instance. It asks only whether a reasonable factfinder could reach the IJ/BIA’s conclusion. The petitioner must show the record compels the opposite result.
• “Collateral legal consequences” (mootness): Even after removal, a case can remain live if the decision has continuing legal effects—here, potential inadmissibility consequences—so the court can still review the petition.

5. Conclusion

Fuentes-Pineda v. Bondi underscores two governing realities of CAT adjudication in the Fifth Circuit: (1) harsh, even deadly prison conditions do not amount to CAT torture without proof of specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering, consistent with Matter of J-E-; and (2) past torture and gang affiliation, without stronger evidence of future individualized targeting, may be deemed too speculative to satisfy the “more likely than not” standard—especially under the “highly deferential” review emphasized by Nasrallah v. Barr.

The decision’s broader significance lies in its evidentiary message: systemic conditions and generalized reports, standing alone, may not carry a petitioner over the CAT threshold unless they are tightly connected to intentional state-inflicted suffering and to a concrete, personal probability of torture.