## Facts

- The principal respondent, C-A-, was a native and citizen of Colombia who lived in Cali and owned a bakery.
- C-A- had social contacts with a Cali cartel security official who discussed cartel operations and personnel in C-A-’s presence.
- C-A- voluntarily provided information about the cartel to a government prosecutor, who used it in investigations and prosecutions.
- Armed men assaulted C-A- in public, injured his son, and threatened C-A-’s family and the prosecutor.
- The family went into hiding and left Colombia for the United States.
- In deportation proceedings, the Immigration Judge found C-A- credible but denied asylum and withholding, concluding the cartel acted from retaliation against interference rather than a protected ground; voluntary departure was granted.
- The Board initially affirmed; the Eleventh Circuit remanded for the Board to address whether noncriminal informants constitute a “particular social group.”

## Issues

1. Whether “noncriminal informants,” including “former noncriminal informants working against the Cali drug cartel,” constitute a “particular social group” under INA § 101(a)(42)(A).
2. Whether harm or threats by the Cali cartel against an informant were inflicted “on account of” that protected ground (and, separately, on account of an imputed political opinion) for asylum or withholding.

## Decision

- The Board held that “noncriminal drug informants working against the Cali drug cartel” do not constitute a cognizable particular social group because the group lacks the required social visibility.
- The Board rejected broader and narrower informant-based group formulations proposed by the respondent.
- The Board agreed that the cartel’s conduct was retaliatory and aimed at neutralizing interference with its criminal activities, rather than persecution on account of a protected ground.
- The Board reaffirmed rejection of the imputed-political-opinion claim because the record did not show the cartel attributed a political opinion to C-A-.
- Asylum and withholding were denied.

## Legal Principles

- A “particular social group” requires a shared characteristic that is immutable or so fundamental to identity or conscience that members should not be required to change it.
- In addition to an immutable or fundamental characteristic, adjudicators must consider whether the proposed group is socially visible (i.e., recognized by society as a distinct group), not merely identifiable to the persecutor.
- Confidential or covert cooperation with law enforcement generally undermines social visibility because the defining trait is typically concealed from the broader community.
- A proposed group may fail where it is overbroad or lacks meaningful boundaries tied to social recognition.
- Asylum and withholding require a nexus: the persecution must be “on account of” a protected ground; retaliation for obstructing criminal activity, without more, does not satisfy the nexus requirement.
- Opposition to a criminal organization does not establish imputed political opinion absent evidence the persecutor attributed a political belief to the applicant.

## Conclusion

The Board concluded that noncriminal informants against the Cali cartel, including former confidential informants, are not a “particular social group” because they are not socially visible as a distinct group in Colombian society, and the cartel’s threats were retaliatory rather than tied to a protected ground; asylum and withholding were therefore unavailable.


Matter of C-A-, 23 I. & N. Dec. 951 (B.I.A. 2006)