Porfiria Gonzalez-Medina v. Eric Holder, Jr., No. 10-70913 (9th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CasePetitioner, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitioned for a review of the decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals affirming a final order of removal, denying her claims for asylum and withholding of removal where her asylum application was time-barred when it was filed more than six years after she entered the United States. At issue was whether applying the one year filing deadline to petitioner's asylum application was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Also at issue was whether domestic abuse that occurred in the United States constituted past persecution. The court held that the government's treatment of petitioner was rationally related to a legitimate government purpose and therefore not in violation of the Equal Protection Clause where the time bar applied to late applications, like petitioner's, would still need to be filed during the first year and where the time bar helped identify legitimate claims, provided a fixed cut-off date for filings, served as a limitation on the number of applicants, and reduced abuse of the system. The court also held that domestic violence that occurred in the United States did not constitute past persecution where it was not "in the proposed country of removal" under 8 C.F.R. 1208.16(b)(1)(i).
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