The Ninth Circuit has granted a petition for review filed by a Mexican mother and her three children who fled after armed men threatened to force the children into drug trafficking and sex trafficking, holding that the BIA erred in finding her proposed social group of "mothers of adolescent children living in Mexico" non-cognizable purely because age changes over time.
The Court held that age-based social groups are immutable as a matter of law, since an applicant cannot alter her age, or a child's age, to escape persecution, and that the relevant age is the applicant's age at the time persecution occurred or is feared. The Court clarified that age-based groups may still fail for lack of particularity or social distinction, but reversed the BIA's categorical rule to the contrary. The Court also held that the BIA applied the wrong standard of review, clear error instead of de novo, to the nexus determination for the petitioner's separate social group of single women targeted by criminal groups, and remanded for the agency to reconsider both issues under the correct standards.
The full text of Garcia Demetrio v. Blanche can be found here: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2026/07/20/25-991.pdf