Documented Safe Internal Relocation Supports Denial of Asylum and Withholding and Informs CAT Risk

Introduction

Pedro Elias Santos-Sanabria, his wife, Myriam Calderon-Paez, and their minor child petitioned for review of the denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Santos-Sanabria had suffered grave abuse as a child at the hands of a Colombian paramilitary group. Years later, members of a successor group threatened his family when he returned to his hometown. The central question on review was whether the record nevertheless supported the Immigration Judge’s finding that the family could live safely elsewhere in Colombia.

Summary of the Opinion

The Tenth Circuit denied the petition. Although the Immigration Judge found Santos-Sanabria credible and his past harm severe enough to constitute persecution, the court held that substantial evidence supported the finding that he could safely relocate within Colombia. He had lived and worked in Bucaramanga for approximately sixteen years without being targeted; the later threat occurred when he returned to his hometown. On the record presented, that relocation finding disposed of asylum and, on the same facts, withholding of removal.

The court also upheld the denial of CAT protection. The Immigration Judge had considered the past torture, continuing paramilitary violence, government corruption, evidence of government efforts to combat armed groups, and the possibility of relocation. The evidence did not compel a finding that Santos-Sanabria was more likely than not to face torture with official involvement or acquiescence upon return.

Scope of the decision: The court did not decide whether Santos-Sanabria’s coerced work for the paramilitary group triggered the material-support bar or resolve the Immigration Judge’s other alternative grounds for denying asylum and withholding. Its order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the specified preclusion and law-of-the-case doctrines; it may be cited for persuasive value.

Analysis

Precedents Cited

• Tulengkey v. Gonzales supplied the review framework: when the Board of Immigration Appeals affirms without opinion, the court reviews the Immigration Judge’s decision as the final agency action. Legal conclusions receive de novo review; factual findings receive substantial-evidence review.
• Jimenez v. Bondi supplied the asylum framework and the comparison with withholding of removal. Asylum requires the requisite connection between persecution and a protected ground; withholding has a higher standard. Thus, the court concluded that failure of these asylum claims on the same future-risk facts also defeated withholding.
• Rivera-Barrientos v. Holder and Ritonga v. Holder illustrated that internal relocation matters to the assessment of future persecution whether or not an applicant has established past persecution.
• Addo v. Barr characterized the ability to avoid future persecution through internal relocation as a factual determination, subject to deferential review.
• Zzyym v. Pompeo supported deciding the petition on one sufficient agency ground without resolving other independent grounds. INS v. Orlando Ventura reinforced the significance of an applicant’s ability to relocate safely within the home country to an asylum claim.
• Wiransane v. Ashcroft and Yuk v. Ashcroft emphasized the limits of appellate review: the court cannot reweigh evidence merely because competing inferences are possible.
• Htun v. Lynch set out CAT’s requirement of a likelihood of torture involving public officials or their consent or acquiescence and identified substantial-evidence review for the agency’s determination. Nasrallah v. Barr likewise confirmed deferential review of factual findings underlying CAT decisions.
• Niang v. Gonzales established that past torture is relevant but does not create a presumption of future torture under CAT.
• Singh v. Bondi informed the court’s treatment of the whole record and its response to the demand for an individualized account of how authorities would react: Santos-Sanabria had not reported his harm to officials, leaving no actual response for the agency to evaluate.

Legal Reasoning

Internal relocation. The court treated Santos-Sanabria’s history as concrete evidence, not speculation. After escaping his hometown in 2006, he lived and worked in Bucaramanga for roughly sixteen years. The 2022 confrontation happened upon his return to his hometown. The petitioners offered evidence that groups such as the AGC operate across Colombia and can pursue victims after relocation, but the court found no evidence that these particular men had targeted Santos-Sanabria outside his hometown. The Immigration Judge had also identified evidence that some parts of Colombia were relatively safe despite paramilitary activity elsewhere.

The petitioners disputed who bore the burden of proving that relocation was reasonable. The court expressly declined to resolve that allocation: it concluded that the record supported the relocation finding regardless of which party bore the burden. It likewise assumed, without deciding, that the past persecution was connected to the proposed protected social groups. These limits matter; the opinion is not a general ruling that past persecution never affects the relocation burden.

CAT protection. Safe relocation was relevant to CAT but was not treated as an automatic bar. The court examined whether the Immigration Judge considered the evidence together, including Santos-Sanabria’s past torture, threats, country conditions, corruption, and government action against armed groups. It held that the Immigration Judge did so and permissibly gave weight to the lengthy period of safety in Bucaramanga. General evidence of violence and imperfect government protection did not compel the contrary conclusion on this record.

Impact

The decision offers a persuasive example of how an applicant’s actual experience of living safely in another part of the home country can carry substantial weight, even after severe past harm and a later threat. It also shows the evidentiary distinction between a group’s general geographic reach and proof that it is likely to find and harm a particular applicant in a proposed place of relocation.

Future applicants and adjudicators may look to its insistence on assessing CAT evidence as a whole while treating past torture and relocation as distinct factors in a forward-looking inquiry. Its force is limited, however: the judgment is nonprecedential, fact-dependent, and leaves the disputed relocation-burden question and the material-support issue unresolved.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Internal relocation

Whether a person can avoid the feared harm by living in a different, reasonably available part of the home country.

Substantial evidence

A deferential review standard. An appellate court does not choose the interpretation of the facts it prefers; it overturns the agency’s factual finding only when the record compels a contrary conclusion.

Withholding of removal

A protection with a higher required showing of future danger than asylum. Here, the same supported relocation finding defeated both claims.

CAT acquiescence

CAT can address torture by non-state actors when the required connection to public officials—including their consent or acquiescence—is proved. Private violence alone does not establish entitlement to CAT protection.

Material-support bar

A statutory restriction the Immigration Judge applied to Santos-Sanabria’s coerced work for the AUC. The appellate court did not rule on whether that application was correct.

Conclusion

Calderon-Paez v. Blanche recognizes the seriousness of Santos-Sanabria’s past abuse while affirming that protection claims also require a supported assessment of future danger. His prolonged safety after relocating within Colombia supplied substantial evidence for denying asylum and withholding and was a permissible factor in denying CAT relief. The decision’s principal significance is its fact-specific, persuasive treatment of relocation—not the creation of a binding categorical rule.