Sixth Circuit Requires Mixed-Motives Nexus Analysis for Family-Based PSG Claims Tied to Control of a Family Business, and Demands Consideration of Police Infiltration/Retaliation Evidence in the “Unable or Unwilling” Inquiry

I. Introduction

Marvin Caceres-Sanchez, a Honduran national, sought withholding of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), 8 C.F.R. § 208.16, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16. After being removed and returning to Honduras, he became involved in managing his mother’s restaurant and uncovered alleged money laundering tied to his niece Cynthia and MS-13. He reported threats to police and later suffered extreme violence (kidnapping, shooting, and sexual assault of his wife), then fled back to the United States.

The immigration court found him credible and found his harm rose to persecution, but denied withholding on (i) nexus grounds (the harm was allegedly motivated by interference with criminal activity rather than family status), (ii) “unable or unwilling” grounds (Honduras allegedly could protect him), and denied CAT relief for lack of government acquiescence. The BIA affirmed “for the reasons stated.”

On review, the Sixth Circuit addressed three principal issues: (1) whether the agency properly analyzed the INA withholding claim—particularly mixed motives and the “unable or unwilling” requirement; (2) whether the immigration court violated due process on remand by not holding a new hearing or allowing additional briefing; and (3) whether petitioner could litigate an ICE disclosure theory not presented to the agency (administrative exhaustion).

II. Summary of the Opinion

• INA withholding: The court held the agency’s analysis was flawed and remanded. It found the immigration court failed to conduct an adequate mixed-motives nexus analysis under the withholding standard (“a reason”), and failed to consider key evidence on whether Honduras was “unable or unwilling” to control MS-13, including alleged police infiltration and the retaliatory consequences of reporting. The court invoked substantial-evidence review principles but concluded the decision rested on “flawed reasoning.”
• Due process: The court rejected petitioner’s claim that due process required a new hearing or additional briefing after remand, emphasizing the lack of Sixth Circuit authority for such a rule, the absence of a BIA directive requiring a hearing, and petitioner’s failure to show what additional evidence he would offer and how it would change the outcome.
• ICE disclosure: The court denied review of petitioner’s argument that ICE’s public disclosure independently increased his persecution risk because the specific “increased risk” theory was not exhausted before the immigration court or the BIA; exhaustion under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1) is a mandatory claim-processing rule when raised by the government.

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1. Standards of review and agency-decision framing

• Khalili v. Holder: Provided the baseline for withholding (“clear probability”) and the definition of persecution by the government or persons the government is unwilling or unable to control; also framed how the Sixth Circuit reviews BIA decisions.
• Sanchez-Robles v. Lynch: Supported reviewing the immigration judge’s decision to the extent the BIA adopts the judge’s reasoning.
• Marikasi v. Lynch and Slyusar v. Holder: Reinforced substantial-evidence review for factual findings (“compelled to conclude to the contrary”).
• Mikhailevitch v. INS: Supplied de novo review for alleged due process violations.

2. Withholding elements: “nexus,” PSG, and mixed motives

• Tista-Ruiz de Ajualip v. Garland: Restated that private-actor persecution claims require (1) nexus and (2) government inability or unwillingness to control the private violence.
• Gilaj v. Gonzales: Required accepting credible testimony as true.
• Guzman-Vazquez v. Barr: Crucial: distinguished withholding’s “at least one reason” nexus standard from asylum’s “central reason,” expressly characterizing withholding’s standard as “weaker than” asylum’s.
• Skripkov v. Barr and Stserba v. Holder: Anchored mixed-motive doctrine—eligibility remains if a protected ground is among the motivations, even alongside nonprotected motives like pecuniary gain.
• Sebastian-Sebastian v. Garland: Provided the court’s “inextricably intertwined” framing, warning against artificially separating protected and nonprotected motives where the facts show entanglement.
• Mazariegos-Rodas v. Garland: The majority’s closest analogue: remand required where the agency treated financial motivation as excluding a family-based PSG motive without analyzing whether the motives were intertwined.
• Perez Vasquez v. Garland (Fourth Circuit): Used as persuasive support for focusing on why the persecutor targeted the petitioner (and not another person) in family-based PSG cases and for rejecting an overly narrow “greed-only” explanation.
• Gonzalez Ruano v. Barr (Seventh Circuit), Sandoval v. Garland (Sixth Circuit unpublished), and R.R.D. v. Holder (Seventh Circuit): Deployed to show how threats to multiple family members can support a family nexus and to rebut any suggestion that all family members must be harmed to prove a family-based PSG nexus.
• Trujillo Diaz v. Sessions and Scorteanu v. INS: Supported the proposition that the agency must consider issues raised and provide enough reasoning to show it “heard and thought,” not merely “reacted.”
• Diaz-Zanatta v. Holder: Supplied the court’s key substantial-evidence move: findings resting on “flawed reasoning” do not satisfy substantial evidence.
• Mandebvu v. Holder and Mostafa v. Ashcroft: Invoked for the principle that failure to indicate consideration of “all evidence relevant” to the claim warrants remand.

3. “Unable or unwilling” analysis and reporting/retaliation evidence

• Palucho v. Garland: Provided the two-pronged lens: specific evidence about governmental response and general evidence about deterrence capacity.
• Juan Antonio v. Barr: Emphasized “reasonable expectation” of assistance and warned applicants need not “wait until she is dead” to prove inability to control.
• Zometa-Orellana v. Garland: Supported requiring the agency to engage with country-conditions evidence showing reporting can increase danger.
• Portillo Flores v. Garland (Fourth Circuit) and Hermosillo v. Garland (Ninth Circuit): Used to illustrate error in imposing a de facto reporting requirement and to validate fear of retaliation and police collusion as relevant to state protection/acquiescence.
• Bringas- Rodriguez v. Sessions (Ninth Circuit): Cited for the broader proposition that failure to report is not outcome-determinative; all record evidence must be considered.
• Rosa- Mejia v. Garland (Sixth Circuit unpublished): Distinguished as a case where reporting was delayed until after a homicide; here the petitioner did attempt reporting and suffered severe retaliatory harm.
• Xochihua-Jaimes v. Barr (Ninth Circuit) and Cantarero Castro v. Att'y Gen. of U.S. (Third Circuit): Used to caution against overreliance on high-level national efforts/statistics when the petitioner’s risk turns on localized corruption and particularized harm.

4. Remand doctrine

• Bi Xia Qu v. Holder and Gonzales v. Thomas: Reinforced the default rule that if the BIA has not fully considered an issue, remand is the proper course.

5. Due process and prejudice

• Montanez-Gonzalez v. Holder: Confirmed a “full and fair hearing” requirement in removal proceedings.
• Lin v. Holder and Abdallahi v. Holder: Required a showing of “substantial prejudice”—a substantially different outcome absent the alleged error.
• Ke Chun Wang v. United States Attorney General (Eleventh Circuit): Persuasive authority rejecting a due process entitlement to present additional evidence on remand absent a remand instruction or a concrete proffer.

6. Exhaustion as a claim-processing rule

• Zakariya v. Garland, Santos-Zacaria v. Garland, and Fort Bend Cnty., Texas v. Davis: Established/illustrated that exhaustion is nonjurisdictional but mandatory when properly invoked; thus enforced here when the government raised it.

7. Additional doctrinal signals (footnote on causation)

• Univ. of Texas Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar (Ginsburg, J., dissenting): Cited for the caution that “but-for” causation is problematic in motive-based, mixed-factor contexts.
• Coello-Valle v. Garland and Garcia v. Wilkinson (Ninth Circuit): Cited to contrast asylum’s “central reason” (but-for) framing with withholding’s lower “a reason” bar.

8. Concurrence/dissent on CAT scope

• Judge White’s concurrence agreed with Judge Nalbandian’s point that the only CAT issue petitioner appealed (likelihood of torture) was not properly before the court because the BIA affirmed on a different CAT element (acquiescence) that petitioner did not appeal.
• Judge Nalbandian’s separate opinion (concurring in part and dissenting in part) relied on cases such as Yousif v. Garland, Marku v. Ashcroft, Kaba v. Mukasey, and INS v. Elias-Zacarias to emphasize deference and motive-based nexus; and discussed family-nexus comparators including Cruz-Guzman v. Barr and Reyes Almendarez v. Barr.

B. Legal Reasoning

1. Nexus: “a reason” and the required mixed-motives inquiry

The immigration court accepted that “immediate family members of Cynthia Nicolle Caceres Sanchez” is a cognizable PSG but denied nexus because the immediate trigger was petitioner’s interference with Cynthia’s and MS-13’s money laundering, not kinship.

The Sixth Circuit identified the analytical error: under Guzman-Vazquez v. Barr, withholding requires only that a protected ground be “at least one reason” for persecution, and under Skripkov v. Barr and Stserba v. Holder, a nonprotected financial motive does not negate eligibility if a protected motive also exists. The court thus required the agency to ask whether the motives were “inextricably intertwined,” per Sebastian-Sebastian v. Garland.

Applying that framework, the majority reasoned that the restaurant’s operation was a “family affair” (owned by petitioner’s mother; financed/managed by petitioner; staffed by family including Cynthia and petitioner’s son). Control of that family business—and therefore the ability to launder money through it—was linked to family membership. In this posture, the question becomes not whether money laundering was a motive (it was), but whether family membership was also “a reason” why petitioner, in particular, was targeted: he was the family member positioned to disrupt (or regain control over) the family enterprise. The court found record evidence suggesting precisely that, including threats aimed at petitioner’s wife and child (“one by one you will die until everything is mine”) and threats to petitioner’s son.

The court also rejected a de facto “but-for” requirement (flagged in footnote discussion referencing Univ. of Texas Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar), noting withholding’s “a reason” standard is inconsistent with strict but-for logic in overdetermined, mixed-motive scenarios.

2. “Unable or unwilling”: ignoring retaliation and infiltration evidence is reversible

The immigration court’s inability/unwillingness analysis leaned heavily on petitioner’s limited reporting to police and generalized evidence that Honduras incarcerates many gang members. The Sixth Circuit held this missed central evidence: the kidnapping and extreme violence occurred shortly after petitioner sought police help and included explicit statements by MS-13 that police were infiltrated and that reporting would be relayed back to the gang.

For the majority, that evidence changes the logic of the “reporting” critique: if reporting triggers retribution and the police are compromised, failure to report further incidents cannot be treated as undermining the claim. This reasoning aligns with Portillo Flores v. Garland (error to impose a de facto reporting requirement while ignoring retaliation evidence) and the Sixth Circuit’s admonition in Juan Antonio v. Barr that applicants need not wait to be killed to prove the state cannot protect them.

On general conditions evidence, the Sixth Circuit criticized reliance on broad incarceration statistics while leaving unaddressed multiple sources submitted by petitioner describing local corruption and gang infiltration of security forces. Citing Xochihua-Jaimes v. Barr and Cantarero Castro v. Att'y Gen. of U.S., the court emphasized that high-level national efforts do not necessarily reflect on-the-ground realities in the petitioner’s locale—particularly where the claim is about particularized persecution tied to local infiltration.

Because the agency did not demonstrate it considered key evidence relevant to the “unable or unwilling” element, remand followed under Bi Xia Qu v. Holder and Gonzales v. Thomas.

3. Due process: no automatic hearing/briefing right on remand without prejudice

Petitioner argued that the immigration court violated due process by issuing a written decision on remand without new hearing/briefing, particularly because the remand decision discussed the “unable or unwilling” element more prominently.

The Sixth Circuit rejected the claim under the prejudice framework of Lin v. Holder and Abdallahi v. Holder. It also found no Sixth Circuit authority requiring new hearings in these circumstances and found persuasive the Eleventh Circuit’s approach in Ke Chun Wang v. United States Attorney General, emphasizing that petitioner did not identify what new evidence he would submit. The court also cited regulations granting immigration judges discretion to take actions “necessary or appropriate” for case disposition (8 C.F.R. § 1003.10(b); 8 C.F.R. § 1240.1(a)(1)(iv)).

4. Exhaustion: reframing the ICE disclosure issue barred appellate review

Petitioner attempted to argue on petition for review that ICE’s public disclosure of his information increased his risk of retaliation. But before the agency he argued only that the disclosure created a cognizable PSG. Because the specific “increased risk” theory was not presented to the immigration court or the BIA, and because the government invoked exhaustion, the court enforced 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1) as a mandatory claim-processing rule, consistent with Santos-Zacaria v. Garland, Zakariya v. Garland, and Fort Bend Cnty., Texas v. Davis.

C. Impact

• Family-business persecution claims: The opinion strengthens the argument that where criminal enterprises depend on access to a family-controlled asset (a restaurant, shop, land, transport business), a petitioner’s family status can be “a reason” for persecution even if the persecutor’s immediate objective is financial. Agencies in the Sixth Circuit can expect more remands where they treat “financial motive” as excluding family-based PSG nexus without analyzing “inextricably intertwined” facts.
• State protection analysis must be evidence-responsive: The decision signals that “unable or unwilling” findings cannot rest on (i) criticism of reporting behavior without grappling with evidence that reporting is dangerous, and (ii) generalized national statistics while ignoring petitioner-specific evidence of local police corruption and gang infiltration.
• Procedural discipline in petitions for review: The exhaustion holding reinforces that petitioners must present the same core theory to the agency that they intend to present in court; shifting from “PSG cognizability” to “independent increased risk” can be fatal when the government presses exhaustion.
• Remand practice: By grounding remand in failure to consider relevant evidence (Mandebvu v. Holder) and flawed reasoning (Diaz-Zanatta v. Holder), the opinion offers petitioners a structured way to challenge agency decisions even under deferential substantial-evidence review.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Withholding of removal (INA): A mandatory form of protection if the applicant shows a “clear probability” (more likely than not) of persecution in the country of removal on account of a protected ground.
• Particular social group (PSG): A legally recognized group (e.g., a nuclear family) that can qualify as a protected ground if it meets doctrinal requirements (not fully relitigated here because the family PSG was accepted as cognizable).
• Nexus (“on account of”): The causal/motivational link between the persecution and a protected ground. For withholding, the protected ground need be only “a reason” (Guzman-Vazquez v. Barr), not necessarily the dominant one.
• Mixed motives / “inextricably intertwined”: Persecutors often act for multiple reasons (money, revenge, power). If a protected ground is intertwined with those motives—e.g., family membership determines who controls a target asset—then the protected ground can still satisfy nexus (Sebastian-Sebastian v. Garland).
• “Unable or unwilling to control”: For harm by private actors like gangs, the applicant must show the government cannot or will not offer reasonable protection. Evidence can include ineffective police response, corruption/infiltration, and credible fears that reporting will trigger retaliation.
• Administrative exhaustion: A petitioner generally must first present arguments to the agency (IJ/BIA). Courts will not review newly reframed issues if not exhausted and the government timely invokes the rule.

V. Conclusion

Marvin Caceres-Sanchez v. Pamela Bondi is a significant Sixth Circuit remand decision in the withholding context. It clarifies that agencies must apply withholding’s lower nexus standard (“a reason”) with an explicit mixed-motives lens where family membership is intertwined with the persecutor’s financial objectives—particularly in family-run business settings. It also tightens the “unable or unwilling” inquiry by requiring engagement with evidence of police infiltration and retaliation risks and cautioning against relying on generalized statistics while ignoring materially specific country-conditions evidence. At the same time, it rejects a due process entitlement to new proceedings on remand absent prejudice, and it enforces exhaustion to bar newly recast theories on petition for review.