Case ID: f-appx_667/html/0225-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Cristian Samuel Cardona FUENTES, Petitioner, v. Loretta E. LYNCH, Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 14-73009
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted June 14, 2016 
    
    FILED June 22, 2016
    
      Mario Acosta, Jr„ Esquire, Attorney, Law Office of Mario Acosta, Jr., Sarah Vanessa Day, Law Offices of Sarah V. Day, Los Angeles, CA, for Petitioner.
    Anthony Paul Nicastro, Senior Litigation Counsel, OIL, Nancy Naseem Safavi, Trial Attorney, DOJ—U.S. Department of Justice Civil Division/Office of Immigration Litigation, Washington, DC, Chief Counsel ICE, Office of the Chief Counsel Department of Homeland Security, San Francisco, CA, for Respondent.
    Before: BEA, WATFORD, and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. 
        See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
   MEMORANDUM

Cristian Samuel Cardona Fuentes, a native and citizen of Guatemala, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ order dismissing his appeal from an immigration judge’s decision denying his application for withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review for substantial evidence the agency’s factual findings. Molino-Morales v. INS, 237 F.3d 1048, 1050 (9th Cir. 2001). We deny the petition for review.

Substantial evidence supports the agency’s determination that the harm Cardona Fuentes suffered did not rise to the level of persecution. See Lim v. INS, 224 F.3d 929, 936 (9th Cir. 2000) (“Threats standing alone ... constitute past persecution in only a small category of' cases, and only when the threats are so menacing as to cause significant actual “ ‘suffering or harm.’”). Substantial evidence also supports the agency’s determination that Car-dona Fuentes failed to establish a protected ground would be a central reason for the harm he fears. See Parussimova v. Mukasey, 555 F.3d 734, 740 (9th Cir. 2009); see also Molina-Morales, 237 F.3d at 1052 (harm based on personal retribution is not persecution on account of a protected ground). We reject Cardona Fuentes’s contention that the agency discounted his testimony. Thus, we deny the petition for review as to Cardona Fuentes’s withholding of removal claim.

Finally, substantial evidence also supports the agency’s denial of CAT relief because Cardona Fuentes failed to show it is more likely than not that he would be tortured by the Guatemalan government, or with its consent or acquiescence. See Garcia-Milian v. Holder, 755 F.3d 1026, 1034-35 (9th Cir. 2014).

PETITION FOR REVIEW DENIED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.