The Ninth Circuit has rejected the proposed particular social group comprised of “witnesses who could testify against gang members based upon what they witnessed,” find that the group lacked particularity. The court remanded the Convention Against Torture claim based on evidence in the Department of State Human Rights Report. “Although the IJ declined to receive the Report as an official part of the record because the form in which it was offered did not comply with the rules, the IJ’s decision treated it as part of the record by taking judicial notice of it. Aguilar-Osorio has relied upon the Report in his appeal to the BIA and in his brief to this court. Yet the BIA decision neither took the Report into account nor explained why it was not taking it into account.”
The full text of Aguilar-Osorio v. Garland can be found here:
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2021/03/15/19-73000.pdf