ORDER VACATED AND REMANDED
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WILKINSON, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
Warner Odir Guevara Martinez illegally entered the United States. When the government sought to remove him, he requested asylum and withholding of removal. The Immigration Judge ("IJ") and Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") denied relief, and for good reason: His version of events is in equal parts extraordinary and preposterous, featuring the haphazard trafficking of human hearts, a divine intervention at the brink of death, and a Terminator-style motorcycle chase. He also paints himself as the misunderstood victim in his own convictions for throwing his partner to the ground by her hair, punching the back of her head, threatening to rip out her contraceptive implant, repeatedly blocking her efforts for help, and trying to abscond with their daughter. Reviewing these remarkable claims and more, the agency held that Guevara Martinez
"failed to meet his burden of proof."
The majority disputes none of this. Yet it vacates and remands anyway, claiming the agency failed to properly apply its own case law when determining whether Guevara Martinez's domestic violence qualified as a "particularly serious crime." Since his tall tales already doom his asylum and withholding claims, it is simply not relevant what kind of crime he committed. Even if it were somehow relevant, the IJ and BIA correctly concluded from the factual record that Guevara Martinez's brutal assault on a family member was a particularly serious crime. The remand here is thus wholly gratuitous. Because we do not require process for the sake of process, I respectfully dissent.
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I.
Guevara Martinez entered the United States illegally. He can stay here only if he qualifies for asylum or withholding of removal. For both claims, an alien must show persecution based on a statutorily protected status. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(42)(A), 1231(b)(3)(A). In his attempt to do so, Guevara Martinez says he experienced a series of fantastical events demanding both the utmost suspension of disbelief and a disregard for every part of the record that contradicts him. As the majority agrees, these chimerical accounts do nothing to support granting him relief from removal. They therefore provide a standalone ground to deny his petition and warrant retelling.
A.
Generally, an alien's story must be "inherent[ly] plausib[le]" to justify asylum or withholding of removal. Id. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii); see also id. § 1231(b)(3)(C). Guevara Martinez's testimony and evidence are anything but.
For instance, during a job interview in El Salvador, he purportedly discovered that his interviewer, Luis Fernando Dias, had a cooler of human hearts in the room kept beating by pacemaker-type devices running off a semitruck's engine. This would be quite the medical and engineering feat, especially since nothing indicates Dias had any specialized knowledge in either field. Equally remarkable is that these organs were apparently headed to Arizona for sale. Most hearts, even when stored using much more sophisticated medical devices, "can only survive outside the body for four to six hours." Health Res. & Servs. Admin., Dep't of Health & Hum. Servs., Matching Donors and Recipients (Apr. 2021). A
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direct flight from El Salvador to Arizona alone lasts over four hours. Surely Dias would not squander any more precious time conducting a job interview. Guevara Martinez's attested Guatemalan escapades are even more absurd. He states that two men, working for the same boss as Dias, cut his hands with a knife and pistol- whipped his head until he lost consciousness. They then allegedly held Guevara Martinez captive for three days without food or water, eventually revealing their intention to strangle him. Right before his scheduled execution, however, Guevara Martinez says he prayed for two minutes. In an unbelievable twist of fate, one of the men felt so moved by Guevara Martinez's faith that he not only released him, but also gave him money and a blessing. Unsurprisingly, this deus ex machina suffers from several glaring plot holes. Why would such a ruthless torturer, after three days of sheer brutality at the behest of Dias's bloodthirsty leader, suddenly experience a change of heart from a brief prayer? And what happened to the torturer's coconspirator? Did he too experience a dramatic bout of repentance?
The climax of the story is just as fictitious. According to his written declaration, Guevara Martinez was motorcycling when Dias and some henchmen approached in two cars. A chase ensued, during which the assailants continuously shot at him. They eventually trapped Guevara Martinez in a dead end, causing him to collide with one of their cars and fly off his motorcycle. Despite injuring his knee, Guevara Martinez ran into a nearby house under construction and began scaling one of its walls. A bullet then struck his left calf. With superhuman grit, Guevara Martinez kept climbing. He eventually reached the top and jumped onto a house next door. But when a second bullet struck his right knee, he fell
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through the roof. Miraculously, that home happened to be owned by a female acquaintance. So Guevara Martinez hid under her grandmother's bed. Dias, who had somehow gained entry, could not find him after a half-hour search because there were "a ton of things underneath her bed" and "blood was pooled in [Guevara Martinez's] boots" such that he left no trail. J.A. 405. Once Dias left, the female acquaintance purportedly removed a bullet from Guevara Martinez's left calf, and some friends later picked him up. Here too plot holes riddle the narrative. How could anyone climb a wall after being thrust from a motorcycle and shot in the leg? Why did the roof collapse when Guevara Martinez was shot a second time? What are the chances this home would be owned by an acquaintance? Why would the assailants not move the things underneath the bed in the only room with a hole in its ceiling? And why did the wound in Guevara Martinez's right knee, which he claims needed thirty-six stiches, not leave blood? Were his boots knee high?
Of course, none of this ever happened. Guevara Martinez would have us believe he is something of a real-world Indiana Jones, repeatedly defying death through mystical stunts and a healthy dose of luck. Dias, meanwhile, operates as a sort of sophisticated villain, albeit one who suffers gaffes rivaling those of the cat in Tom and Jerry. Because neither the IJ nor the BIA needs to throw out common sense when assessing credibility, we can readily deny the petition on the basis that Guevara Martinez's screenplay is too far- fetched to be true.
B.
Compounding the implausibility of Guevara Martinez's story is its total lack of
"consistency" across the record. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii); see also id. § 1231(b)(3)(C).
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For example, while Guevara Martinez twice complained to foreign authorities after the dates of his alleged kidnapping and shooting, neither police report names Dias or Los Zetas (the drug-trafficking organization with whom Dias was purportedly affiliated) as the culprit. Both instead specify that MS-13 attacked him after he refused to join it. The police reports also make no mention of him being tortured, kidnapped, or chased by car. Guevara Martinez tries to reconcile these problems by explaining that the authorities intentionally misattributed the incidents to MS-13 given their fear of Dias and Los Zetas. If that were true, one wonders why the police would bother filing a report at all, let alone falsely blame a gang as dangerous as MS-13. That police in two distinct jurisdictions tendered this same bizarre response, as Guevara Martinez claims, is even more ridiculous. Indeed, contradicting the police is a theme in Guevara Martinez's testimony. When downplaying his two Virginia convictions, he could not have painted himself in a more sympathetic light. He tells a tragic tale of waking up to his partner having sex with his nephew. Upon confrontation, she purportedly bruised herself on purpose (by pressing on a contraceptive implant in her arm) and then called the police to report domestic abuse, despite Guevara Martinez begging her not to do so given the risk he would be deported. He also maintains that he merely hugged his partner to stop her from hurting herself. A contemporaneously created police report tells things quite differently. It recounts how a police officer, upon responding to the partner's domestic violence complaint, saw Guevara Martinez forcibly grab her arm to pull her away from the entryway. So the officer detained him and questioned both parties. According to the partner, Guevara Martinez had earlier grabbed her arm forcefully; threatened to rip out a contraceptive implant in it,
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thinking the implant was used to mask infidelity; and "violently threw her to th[e] ground"
by her hair. J.A. 362. The officer noticed "fresh bruising" on her arm that "w[as] dark purple" and "in the shape of fingerprints." J.A. 362. Guevara Martinez, for his part, denied any physical altercation but suspiciously omitted several exculpatory—and presumably unforgettable—claims that later appeared in his testimony. For example, he failed to tell the officer that he supposedly woke up to his partner having sex with his nephew and that his partner apparently bruised herself.
The inconsistencies do not end there. Guevara Martinez attests that, after being released from custody and served with a protective order, he returned home with his partner's consent so that he could peacefully gather his belongings, only to be greeted by her and her family yelling at him to leave. But according to another police report, Guevara Martinez used a key to enter and proceeded to assault his partner's niece, punch his partner in the back of her head, steal her phone, and try to flee with their daughter, all while he was allegedly high on PCP.
C.
Riddled with incredible claims and bald contradictions, Guevara Martinez's story is as unconvincing as it gets. Substantial evidence thus easily supports the decisions of the IJ and BIA. Remember, the record as a whole need only support their adverse credibility determination by "more than a mere scintilla" of evidence. Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, 146 S. Ct. 845, 850 (2026) (quoting Biestek v. Berryhill, 139 S. Ct. 1148, 1154 (2019)). And since Guevara Martinez's independent evidence comes nowhere near the "almost insurmountable" burden needed for relief without credibility—a conclusion the majority
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does not dispute—we must deny his petition. Herrera-Alcala v. Garland, 39 F.4th 233, 251 (4th Cir. 2025) (quoting Rusu v. INS, 296 F.3d 316, 323 (4th Cir. 2002)).
II.
The majority does not even try to suggest that Guevara Martinez is telling the truth. It instead opts to fault the IJ and BIA for, ostensibly, failing to follow their own precedent when assessing whether Guevara Martinez committed a "particularly serious crime." That conclusion is both surprising and incorrect for several reasons.
A.
To state the obvious, an alien who unlawfully enters the United States, as Guevara Martinez did, is subject to removal. He does not need to separately break the law after his act of illegal immigration. The particularly serious crime bar is but an independent ground to deem an alien ineligible for asylum and withholding of removal—if he otherwise qualifies for such relief on the merits. See, e.g., Pagayon v. Holder, 675 F.3d 1182, 1190- 91 (9th Cir. 2011) (per curiam) (denying petition for review for alien who "failed to meet his burden of pro[of]" without discussing "the IJ's alternative conclusion" about the alien's particularly serious crime). And because Guevara Martinez does not qualify for asylum or withholding on the merits, he can be removed. This straightforward observation should end the case.
The majority seems to think that the IJ and BIA denied asylum and withholding of removal solely on the basis that Guevara Martinez committed a particularly serious crime. If true, that means we cannot decide this petition on another ground. See SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 95 (1943). However, the decisions below reveal the very opposite: over
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and over again, the agency denied Guevara Martinez's claims first on the merits and second on the particularly serious crime bar.
Recall the IJ's decision, which the BIA adopted in full. After spending several pages spelling out the many reasons why Guevara Martinez's claims lacked credibility and corroboration, the IJ twice wrote in connection with the asylum and withholding claims that "[Guevara Martinez] failed to meet his burden of proof and persuasion." J.A. 99-100. He did so without mentioning the words "particularly serious crime" even once; rather, the discussion of Guevara Martinez's conviction came only afterward in a discrete, separately designated portion of the opinion. J.A. 100-03. And in a concluding paragraph, the IJ again explained that "[Guevara Martinez] failed to meet his burden of proof and persuasion as he was not credible and failed to adequately corroborate his claim." J.A. 109. The IJ then added "further" that Guevara Martinez was ineligible for relief due to his crime of domestic violence. J.A. 109.
By "further," of course, the IJ meant that the particularly serious crime bar was an independent, but not a necessary, basis to deny relief. This is made readily apparent by the word's ordinary meaning. See, e.g., Further, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 713 (5th ed. 2011) ("In addition; furthermore."). It is also made readily apparent by the IJ's findings as to the burden of proof. For both asylum and withholding of removal, of course, the alien bears the burden. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i) ("The burden of proof is on the applicant . . . ."); id. § 1231(b)(3)(C) ("[T]he trier of fact shall determine whether the alien has sustained the alien's burden of proof . . . ."). So by repeatedly stating that Guevara Martinez "failed to meet his burden of
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proof," the IJ necessarily denied Guevara Martinez's claims for asylum and withholding of removal. And again, the IJ did so entirely based on the unbelievable and uncorroborated nature of his story. The particularly serious crime bar never entered the equation. What exactly does the majority think will happen upon remand? The IJ and BIA have already explained that Guevara Martinez's claims are unpersuasive, and the majority agrees with them on this front. Even if the agency decides—unnecessarily—to reevaluate its analysis of Guevara Martinez's domestic violence conviction, it will still be bound by our holding that he lacks credibility and corroboration. After all, an "adverse credibility determination and the lack of corroboration doom [an alien's] claims." Omowole v. Garland, 6 F.4th 734, 743 (7th Cir. 2021). Ultimately, the majority does nothing but delay the inevitable administration of justice. But "[p]rocess is not an end in itself." Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 250 (1983).
B.
The majority nevertheless debates whether Guevara Martinez's conviction for assault and battery against a family member was a "particularly serious crime" such that he poses "a danger to the community of the United States." 8 U.S.C. §§ 1158(b)(2)(A)(ii), 1231(b)(3)(B)(ii). That analysis would remain flawed even if it served some discernible end.
Under our normal totality-of-the-circumstances test, this issue should have been easy. Guevara Martinez violently threw his partner down by her hair and threatened to remove a contraceptive implant inside her arm. Worse still, he denies guilt to this day,
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portraying himself instead as a saintly figure ruthlessly victimized by an unfaithful and deportation-seeking romantic partner. That narrative is ludicrous if not offensive. With this in mind, "the circumstances and underlying facts of [Guevara Martinez's] conviction" show he committed a particularly serious crime. Gao v. Holder, 595 F.3d 549, 557 (4th Cir. 2010) (quoting In re Frentescu, 18 I. & N. Dec. 244, 247 (BIA 1982)). And
"most importantly, . . . the type and circumstances of [his] crime indicate [he] will be a danger to the community." Id. (quoting In re Frentescu, 18 I. & N. Dec. at 247). If Guevara Martinez is willing to commit and deny such disturbing violence against his romantic partner (the mother of his daughter, no less), one can fairly conclude that he poses a danger not just to her and her family, but to society. See, e.g., United States v. Staten, 666 F.3d 154, 167 (4th Cir. 2011) ("[T]he rate of recidivism among domestic violence misdemeanants is substantial . . . .").
The record thus confirms the obvious: the IJ and BIA rightly concluded that Guevara Martinez, by violently abusing and threatening his partner while cutting her off from help, committed a particularly serious crime. Moreover, any layman familiar with the circumstances of Guevara Martinez's crimes would say he poses "a danger to the community." 8 U.S.C. §§ 1158(b)(2)(A)(ii), 1231(b)(3)(B)(ii). Only lawyers could think otherwise.
C.
Thinking otherwise, the majority faults the agency for failing to sufficiently expound upon the first half of the supposed "two-step test" for identifying a particularly serious crime. Maj. Op. at 12. That is, the IJ and BIA apparently failed to scrutinize whether
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assault and battery against a family member, in a vacuum, lands "within the ambit of a particularly serious crime." Id. (quoting Annor v. Garland, 95 F.4th 820, 827 (4th Cir. 2024)). Only if it does, the majority continues, can we finally turn to the individualized facts of the alien's crime. Id.
In other words, the majority endorses a confused form of the categorical approach, locking our ordinary totality-of-the-circumstances analysis behind a threshold inquiry into some vanilla violation of the statute underlying the alien's conviction. Of course the majority does not come right out and label its approach as categorical. But by forsaking a simple totality-of-the-circumstances test in favor of an initial inquiry into the elements of the offense, there is no other way to read it. If those "elements" fail to satisfy the majority's view of seriousness, that apparently would end the inquiry.
That makes little sense. Normally, "[t]he categorical approach serves 'practical' purposes: It promotes judicial and administrative efficiency by precluding the relitigation of past convictions in minitrials conducted long after the fact." Moncrieffe v. Holder, 569 U.S. 184, 200-01 (2013) (quoting Chambers v. United States, 555 U.S. 122, 125 (2009)). None of these benefits apply to the typical removal based on a particularly serious crime. For one thing, the IJ and BIA need only find that the alien was convicted of one particularly serious crime, as opposed to, say, three violent felonies. See, e.g., Taylor v. United States,
495 U.S. 575, 600 (1990) (adopting the categorical approach to determine whether a crime counts as one of "three previous convictions . . . for a violent felony" in 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)). For another, the removal process almost always follows shortly after the alien
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has been convicted of a particularly serious crime. Indeed, an alien's criminal conduct is often the impetus for the removal proceeding.
As an example, look no further than this very case: the IJ found particularly serious Guevara Martinez's conviction for assault and battery against a family member, doing so just eleven months after Guevara Martinez pleaded guilty. How exactly is the adjudicatory process made more efficient by forcing the agency to blind itself to the readily available facts of an alien's crime? Consider too that, under the majority's framework, the agency must still undergo a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis—but only after an academical inquiry into whether a run-of-the-mill breach of the criminal statute can, at some abstract level, be particularly serious. The practical justifications of the categorical approach, whatever their merits elsewhere, simply do not apply here.
Neither do the statutory justifications. Ordinarily, the categorical approach comes into play only where it has some basis in the text of the respective federal statute. Contrast, e.g., id. at 600-01, with Nijhawan v. Holder, 557 U.S. 29, 37-40 (2009). Recall that the statute here requires asking whether "the alien, having been convicted by a final judgment of a particularly serious crime," poses "a danger to the community of the United States." 8 U.S.C. §§ 1158(b)(2)(A)(ii), 1231(b)(3)(B)(ii). The two key considerations in this inquiry—seriousness of the crime and dangerousness to the community—are inherently unique to each petitioner.
Of course, Congress recognized that some crimes are so egregious that they are per se particularly serious. Id. §§ 1158(b)(2)(B), 1231(b)(3)(B); see, e.g., id. § 1101(a)(43)(A) ("murder, rape, or sexual abuse of a minor"). But for everything else, the Immigration and
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Nationality Act ("INA") leaves it up to the IJ and BIA to make the particularly serious crime determination on a case-by-case basis. Every regional circuit recognizes this basic structure. See, e.g., Lafortune v. Garland, 110 F.4th 426, 432, 434-36 (1st Cir. 2024); Garcia Pinach v. Bondi, 147 F.4th 117, 135 n.7 (2d Cir. 2025); Laureano v. Att'y Gen.,
177 F.4th 453, 462-64 (3d Cir. 2026); Gao, 595 F.3d at 556-57; Aviles-Tavera v. Garland,
22 F.4th 478, 483 (5th Cir. 2022); Reyes-Romero v. Barr, 832 F. App'x 426, 429 (6th Cir. 2020); Kithongo v. Garland, 33 F.4th 451, 456 (7th Cir. 2022); Shazi v. Wilkinson, 988 F.3d 441, 449 (8th Cir. 2021); Edgar G.C. v. Bondi, 136 F.4th 832, 842 (9th Cir. 2025); N- A-M v. Holder, 587 F.3d 1052, 1056 (10th Cir. 2009) (per curiam); K.Y. v. U.S. Att'y Gen.,
43 F.4th 1175, 1187 (11th Cir. 2022) (per curiam). Given the petition before us, such consensus is not hard to understand. If Guevara Martinez prevails in proving that his conviction is not within the so-called "ambit" of a particularly serious crime, Maj. Op. at 13, then Virginia assault and battery against a family member can never qualify as particularly serious. That type of categorical holding undermines the INA in at least two respects: it deprives the IJ and BIA of their roles as the initial triers of fact, and it negates the individualized inquiry that Congress intended when enacting § 1158(b)(2)(A)(ii) and § 1231(b)(3)(B)(ii).
It also undermines all common sense. Nobody thinks that crimes of domestic abuse can never be particularly serious, nor does anyone think that domestic abusers never pose a danger to the community. To so much as entertain the thought otherwise, as the majority does by remanding, does a disservice not just to Guevara Martinez's battered partner, but
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also to the millions of victims of domestic violence. See FBI, Domestic Relationships and Violent Crimes, 2020-2024, at 5 (Feb. 2026).
Guevara Martinez takes things one step further, suggesting that all misdemeanors are not particularly serious absent exceptional circumstances. Opening Br. at 17-18. Such a sweeping generalization departs radically from the facts-and-circumstances inquiry that the INA demands. His argument is especially troublesome in the context of the domestic abuse seen here, which all too often goes undercharged as a "misdemeanor[] rather than
[a] felon[y], notwithstanding the harmfulness of the[] [perpetrator's] conduct." Voisine v. United States, 579 U.S. 686, 689 (2016); see, e.g., United States v. Skoien, 614 F.3d 638, 643 (7th Cir. 2010) (en banc) ("[M]any aggressors end up with no conviction, or a misdemeanor conviction, when similar violence against a stranger would produce a felony conviction.").
Rather than address these difficult points, the majority hides behind our decision in Annor v. Garland, 95 F.4th 820. There, the court invoked the threshold "ambit" inquiry for the first—and only—time, claiming it derived from the BIA's "established precedent" in In re N-A-M-, 24 I. & N. Dec. 336 (BIA 2007). Annor, 95 F.4th at 827. Query at the outset why we would accept without question an agency's reading of a federal statute. See Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 144 S. Ct. 2244, 2273 (2024). Query also why Annor insufficiently engaged with the Fourth Circuit case law, both before and after In re N-A- M-, that applied a simple totality-of-the-circumstances analysis. E.g., Yousefi v. INS, 260 F.3d 318, 328 (4th Cir. 2001) (per curiam); Gao, 595 F.3d at 557.
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The majority has lost the forest for the trees. Just look at the factual inquiry the INA points us to: Do not apply an inapplicable, categorical-sounding criterion, which in effect adds per se offenses that Congress did not enumerate. Look instead at Guevara Martinez's individual circumstances, not those of some other hypothetical person somewhere yonder. Once again, Guevara Martinez brutally attacked and bruised his partner while repeatedly barring her from seeking assistance.
III.
Guevara Martinez rests his case on a chain of tall tales, each contradicted on its face and by independent evidence. Concluding as much, the IJ and BIA denied asylum and explained that his conviction for violently assaulting, threatening, and silencing his partner disqualified him from relief regardless. Rather than respect these ready findings, the majority misconstrues the good work of the IJ and BIA and then criticizes them for errors they did not commit. In the process, it merely stalls what we all know is inevitable: Guevara Martinez will be denied asylum and withholding of removal. The INA does not reward testimony that bears no discernable relationship to truth, and neither should we.