Issue Exhaustion as a Mandatory Claim-Processing Rule and the “No Nexus at All” Bar for Private-Crime Asylum/Withholding Claims

I. Introduction

In Catarina Josefina Hernandez-Calel v. Pamela Bondi (6th Cir. Mar. 10, 2026), the Sixth Circuit reviewed a Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) decision affirming the denial of asylum and withholding of removal to Catarina Josefina Hernandez-Calel, a young Guatemalan woman who entered the United States as an unaccompanied minor.

Hernandez-Calel alleged harms in Guatemala City and her rural hometown: physical abuse by her employer (a live-in housekeeping job) and stalking/assault threats by an older male taxi driver. She sought asylum, statutory withholding, and Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) protection, asserting persecution connected to her identity as an indigenous Mayan Quiche woman and membership in a particular social group.

The key appellate issue became narrow. Although Hernandez-Calel raised numerous arguments in the Sixth Circuit (including CAT, particular social group cognizability, and defective Notice to Appear issues), she had raised only a limited set before the BIA. The court therefore addressed primarily whether substantial evidence supported the agency’s conclusion that she failed to establish the required nexus between the harms and a protected ground.

II. Summary of the Opinion

The Sixth Circuit denied the petition for review. It held that most arguments were not properly before the court because Hernandez-Calel did not exhaust them before the BIA, and the government invoked exhaustion.

On the only preserved merits question—nexus—the court concluded substantial evidence supported the BIA’s finding that:

  • the taxi driver targeted Hernandez-Calel because “he liked [her],” and
  • the employer hit her because “she could not do her job,”

meaning the record supported the characterization of her experience as private criminal conduct and workplace abuse without evidence that her indigenous identity or proposed social group membership motivated the persecutors. Because the record showed “no nexus at all,” she could not satisfy nexus for withholding of removal (even under its more lenient standard), and thus could not satisfy asylum’s more demanding nexus requirement either.

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

The opinion’s reasoning is largely structured by three doctrinal clusters: (1) administrative issue exhaustion, (2) standards of review and record deference, and (3) the nexus requirement (including the distinction between asylum and withholding).

1. Exhaustion and waiver: limiting what the court may review

  • Santos-Zacaria v. Garland, 598 U.S. 411, 414 n.1 (2023): cited for terminology (“noncitizen” as equivalent to “alien”), reflecting modernized diction without altering substantive standards.
  • Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 90 (2006): used for the foundational purpose of exhaustion—to give the agency a “fair and full opportunity” to adjudicate claims.
  • Singh v. Rosen, 984 F.3d 1142, 1155 (6th Cir. 2021): supplies the Sixth Circuit’s rule that an immigrant must present the specific issue to the BIA to later raise it in court.
  • Mazariegos-Rodas v. Garland, 122 F.4th 655, 664, 666 (6th Cir. 2024): critical to the holding that exhaustion under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1) is a mandatory claim-processing rule (not jurisdictional), but must be enforced when the government timely raises it.
  • Cuevas-Nuno v. Barr, 969 F.3d 331, 334 n.3 (6th Cir. 2020) and Simon-Domingo v. Garland, 2024 WL 4850698, at *3–4 (6th Cir. Nov. 21, 2024): applied to determine which claims were actually raised to the BIA by looking to the petitioner’s BIA briefing; also used to treat unraised CAT theories as unexhausted.
  • Menjivar-Bonilla v. Bondi, 2025 WL 608797, at *1 (6th Cir. Feb. 25, 2025): provides the court’s direct consequence rule—if the issue was not raised to the BIA, “we cannot decide it here.”

These cases collectively drove the court’s threshold narrowing: despite seven issues raised in the Sixth Circuit, most were unavailable due to non-exhaustion, including the CAT claim (deemed waived at the BIA for lack of meaningful challenge) and the defective NTA claim (expressly disclaimed before the IJ and not raised to the BIA).

2. Standard of review and agency decision structure

  • Mohammed v. Bondi, 129 F.4th 988, 989–90 (6th Cir. 2025): cited for jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252 to review the final order of removal.
  • Zometa-Orellana v. Garland, 19 F.4th 970, 976 (6th Cir. 2021) and Cobo-Lopez v. Bondi, 2025 WL 2105654, at *2 (6th Cir. July 28, 2025): establish how the Sixth Circuit reviews BIA decisions that issue a separate opinion but adopt portions of the IJ’s reasoning.
  • Sabastian-Andres v. Garland, 96 F.4th 923, 929 (6th Cir. 2024); Zhao v. Holder, 569 F.3d 238, 247 (6th Cir. 2009); Ceraj v. Mukasey, 511 F.3d 583, 588 (6th Cir. 2007): set out the substantial-evidence standard and the “compels” reversal threshold for factual findings.
  • Turcios-Flores v. Garland, 67 F.4th 347, 357 (6th Cir. 2023): specifically identifies nexus determinations as factual findings reviewed for substantial evidence.

This framework matters because it makes reversal unusually difficult: the petitioner must show the record not only supports a contrary conclusion, but compels it.

3. The nexus requirement and “private crime” characterization

  • Sebastian-Sebastian v. Garland, 87 F.4th 838, 847, 851 (6th Cir. 2023): supplies a core definition of persecution and reiterates that both asylum and withholding require nexus; also provides the asylum/withholding nexus distinction (“one central reason” vs. “a reason”).
  • Patel v. Bondi, 131 F.4th 377, 381 (6th Cir. 2025): reinforces that asylum/withholding require nexus between risk of persecution and protected-group membership.
  • Romero Morales v. Bondi, 2025 WL 3094124, at *3 (6th Cir. Nov. 4, 2025) and Guzman-Vazquez v. Barr, 959 F.3d 253, 272 (6th Cir. 2020): used to explain the weaker withholding nexus requirement and the comparative logic the panel applies in assessing both claims.
  • Silva del Aguila v. Bondi, 2025 WL 3634198, at *4 (6th Cir. Dec. 15, 2025): pivotal to the result—when the record shows “no nexus at all,” denial is appropriate even under withholding’s more lenient nexus standard.
  • Aguilar-Gonzalez v. Barr, 779 F. App’x 354, 358 (6th Cir. 2019): supports the proposition that absent evidence of motive tied to a protected ground, the record does not compel a nexus finding.
  • Hegyi v. Gonzales, 136 F. App’x 777, 778 (6th Cir. 2005) (citing Fisher v. INS, 291 F.3d 491, 497 (8th Cir. 2002)): invoked for the notion that harassment by private individuals does not itself constitute persecution (in the way required by asylum law), emphasizing the need for more than private mistreatment.
  • Gomez-Chavez v. Barr, 791 F. App’x 573, 578 (6th Cir. 2019): used to stress that random crime or indiscriminate abuse is insufficient; the applicant must show she was “specifically targeted” in the legally relevant sense (i.e., for a protected reason).

B. Legal Reasoning

1. The court’s threshold gatekeeping: exhaustion narrows the appeal

The Sixth Circuit treated 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1) as controlling: a petitioner must exhaust “all administrative remedies available to [her] as of right.” Relying on Mazariegos-Rodas v. Garland, the panel emphasized exhaustion is not jurisdictional, but is mandatory when invoked by the government. Because the respondent timely objected, the court enforced exhaustion and refused to reach most arguments (including CAT).

This approach also determined how the court handled the defective NTA theory. The record reflected counsel explicitly declined to raise NTA deficiency before the IJ, and the issue was not presented to the BIA—making it unavailable on petition for review under Cuevas-Nuno v. Barr and Menjivar-Bonilla v. Bondi.

2. Merits: nexus as a factual question reviewed for substantial evidence

On the preserved claim, the panel treated nexus as a fact question per Turcios-Flores v. Garland. It then asked whether the evidence compelled a finding that the taxi driver’s threats/assault and the employer’s abuse were motivated by Hernandez-Calel’s protected characteristic(s)—here, her identity and claimed particular social group status as an indigenous Mayan Quiche woman.

The court accepted the agency’s reading of the record: the taxi driver acted because he “liked” her, and the employer hit her because she could not do the work. The panel also highlighted a fact that undermined the proposed ethnic/indigenous-motive narrative: Hernandez-Calel testified the taxi driver could not have inferred where she was from based on her appearance or dress. In the court’s view, the absence of direct or circumstantial evidence linking motive to a protected ground meant the record did not compel a contrary nexus finding.

3. “No nexus at all” defeats both withholding and asylum

The opinion underscores the doctrinal hierarchy: asylum requires a protected ground be “at least one central reason,” while withholding requires only that it be “a reason.” Yet the court adopted the logic of Silva del Aguila v. Bondi: where the record shows “no nexus at all,” even withholding fails. This is a clarifying move in practice—petitioners cannot rely on withholding’s lower nexus threshold if they cannot point to any evidence that a protected ground motivated the harm.

C. Impact

  • Issue preservation will decide cases earlier and more often. The opinion operationalizes Mazariegos-Rodas v. Garland by showing that once the government invokes exhaustion, the court will confine review to issues actually presented to the BIA—even if the petitioner frames additional issues as due process or legal error on petition for review.
  • CAT claims are especially vulnerable to “waiver” findings at the BIA. The court treated the BIA’s determination (that the CAT issue was not meaningfully challenged) as fatal to judicial review, citing Simon-Domingo v. Garland. Practitioners should assume that merely mentioning CAT is insufficient; the appeal must substantively argue error.
  • Intersectional identity arguments require record-tethered motive evidence. The petitioner’s framing—harms as part of gendered and ethnic subordination—did not succeed without evidence that the specific perpetrators acted because of those identities. Future cases will likely turn on developing circumstantial proof of motive (statements, patterns of targeting, differential treatment, contextualized country-conditions evidence tied to the particular events).
  • “Private crime” labeling remains a powerful agency-safe harbor in the Sixth Circuit. While asylum law can cover harm by non-state actors, this opinion reinforces that without proof of protected-ground motive (and, typically, inability/unwillingness of the state to control the actor), private violence will often be treated as ordinary criminality outside the statute’s scope.
  • Withholding’s lower nexus standard is not a fallback if the evidence shows none. The court’s reliance on the “no nexus at all” concept signals that withholding will not rescue cases that fail to produce at least some evidence connecting harm to a protected ground.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • Nexus: the required link between the harm feared (or suffered) and a protected ground (race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group). It is not enough to show serious harm; the harm must be because of a protected characteristic.
  • “One central reason” vs. “a reason”: for asylum, the protected ground must be an important/central motive; for withholding, it can be a contributing motive. But if the record shows the protected ground played no role, both fail.
  • Substantial-evidence review: a very deferential standard. The court does not decide what it thinks happened; it asks whether the agency’s fact findings are reasonably supported. Reversal requires the evidence to compel the opposite conclusion.
  • Exhaustion (issue exhaustion): to preserve an argument for federal court, the petitioner must raise that specific issue to the BIA first. If not, and the government objects, the court will not consider it.
  • Waiver at the BIA: if an issue is not meaningfully argued on appeal to the BIA, the BIA may deem it waived—functionally preventing later federal-court review for lack of exhaustion.
  • Private actor harm: asylum law can cover harm by private individuals, but generally only when (1) the harm is for a protected reason and (2) the government is unwilling or unable to control the persecutor. “Private crime” without a protected-ground motive typically fails nexus.

V. Conclusion

Hernandez-Calel v. Bondi is a procedural-and-proof case: procedurally, it demonstrates the Sixth Circuit’s strict enforcement of issue exhaustion as a mandatory claim-processing rule when invoked; substantively, it reiterates that asylum and withholding turn on evidence of persecutor motive, and that “private crimes” unsupported by protected-ground nexus evidence will not satisfy either standard. The decision’s most practical lesson is that petitioners must both (1) preserve issues with developed argument before the BIA and (2) build a record that ties specific harms to protected-ground motivation, not merely to general country conditions or sociological context.