Convention Against Torture (CAT) withholding is available to any non-citizens who can prove that he/she may be tortured if removed to his/her country regardless of the reason. CAT may well be the only option for some as criminal convictions, no matter how serious, do not bar the grant of CAT.
Our office represented individuals and received a favorable published decision on this issue from the 9th Circuit, en banc panel, in the case of Maldonado vs. Holder, 9th circ (en banc 2015). This published decision dealt with the burden of proof of internal relocation. This case modified and overruled other 9th Circuit cases in Convention Against Torture (CAT) claims. The en banc court held that Hasan and Lemus-Galvan are inconsistent with 8 C.F.R. §§ 1208.16(c)(2) and (3) because they improperly place the burden on the petitioner to prove that internal relocation is impossible. The en banc court also concluded that Singh departs from § 1208.16(c)(3) because the regulation does not specify that the inability to relocate safely is an element of claim for deferral of removal for which a petitioner bears the burden of proof, and that Perez-Ramirez improperly applied to the CAT context the burden shifting scheme for internal relocation applicable to asylum claims. We have over 30 years’ experience in handling successful asylum/withholding/CAT applications.