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# United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

No. 19-2081

M ARI A M E RC E D E S L OP E Z -G ARCIA , et al., Petitioners ,

v.

W I L L I AM P. B ARR

, Attorney General of the United States, Respondent.

Petition for Review of an Order of the B oard of Immigration Appeals. Nos. A206-450-595, A206-450-596, A206-450-597 and A206-450-598.

A RGUE D D E C E MB E R 2, 2019

— D E CI D E D A UGUST 11, 2020

Before SYKE S

, Chief Judge, and B AUE R and E AST E R B ROO K , Circuit Judges

. B AUE R , Ci rcuit Judge. M aria Lopez-Garcia and her three minor children, Luisa, W endy , a nd Rolando Lopez-Lopez are nativ es and citizens of Guatemala. W e consider whether the2 No. 19-2081
Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) abused its disc r e tion in denying th eir motions to reconsider and reopen. Upon review , w e find no abuse of discretion by the BIA and deny the petition. I. BACKGROUND In 2008, Lopez-Garc ia ’s husband, Arnoldo Rene LopezLopez, left for the United States to pursue economic opportunity

. In May of 2014, Lopez-Garcia and her children entered the United States without v alid entry documents. Immigration enforcement officers apprehended them. An asylum officer found that she demonstrated a credible fear o f p ersecution or torture in Guatemala. Lopez-Garcia and her children w e r e placed in remov al proceedings under 8 U.S.C. § 1229a. LopezGarcia, with counse l, filed an I-589 application for asylum listing her three children as derivativ e beneficiaries. In her affidavit and at the hearing, Lopez-Garcia shared her experience of being a single mother in Guatemala. After her husband left for the United State s, he sent her a money order each month, which she cashed at the bank. The journey to the bank inv olv ed an hou r w a lk through mountains, along cliffs, through a forest on unpav ed paths, and a bus r ide that w ould take her into town. In 2013, Lopez-Garcia and her mother noticed tw o men in f r ont of the bank looking at them and believ ed the men w ere following them. Ov er the next y ear

, Lopez-Garcia receiv ed three telephone calls from an unidentified male caller demanding m oney
. On the first call, the man thr e atened to find out where she liv ed

a nd harm her

. On the second call, he asked h er for 25,000 Guetzales and threatened to find out where her children w entNo. 19-2081 3

to school. She reported the call to the police and took her children t o liv e with her parents. The third time the man called, he aske d f or 50 ,000 Guetzales. The man said he knew her husband w as in the United States and threatened to kidnap her children or kill her and her children. In April of 2014, LopezGarcia and her three children left for the United States. In July of 2 017, the Immigration Judge found tha t the threats made aga inst Lopez-Garcia and her children in Guatemala did not qualify as past persecution. The Immigration Judge did not find her membership in the p roposed particular social group of “Guatemalan females l iving with her children alone in their country , as their husbands had migrated to the U nite d States and are not able t o support o r protect themselv es and their children” to be the persecutory motiv e of the men in front of the bank or the caller

. Furthermore, LopezGarcia did not show that the Guatemalan gov ernment w as unwilling or unable to protect her and she did not show a w ellfounded fear of future harm. The I mmigr a tion Judge denied the application for protection under the Convention Against T orture. Lopez-Garcia a ppealed in September 2018 and the BIA affirmed the Immigration Judge’s decision. In October , LopezGa rcia mov ed for reconsideration. While the motion t o reconsider w as still pending, Lopez-G ar cia filed a timely

m otion to reopen her case. In 2019, the BIA denied both motions and he ld that she rehashed the same arguments already considered and that i t considered a l l the evidence and the additional new evidenc e w a s not material to the BIA’s assessment. This petition for review follow ed.4 No. 19-2081
II. DISCUSSION Petitioners raise additional ar gu m e nts than they r aised b e f ore the BIA. Aliens must raise their arguments before the BIA in order to be review ed upon appeal. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1). Giv en there w as no review of a petition for the underlying
remov al order

, a r guments that Petitioners make now are n o t adequately preserv ed. FH-T v
. Holder, 723 F .3d 833, 84 1 (7th Cir

. 2013) (“[A]n alie n must exhaust all administrativ e r emedie s a v ailable to the alien as of right,

... and this include s the obligation first to present to the B oard any arguments that lie within i ts pow er to address.” (internal quotation mar ks omitted)). The purpose of exhausting all a dminis trativ e remedies a v ailable before the BIA i s to allow the BIA to apply their “specia lized knowledge and experience” in this legal area, which then lends us “reasoning to r eview.” Minghai T ian
v. Holder, 745 F .3d 822, 826 (7th Cir. 2014). P u r s u a nt to 8 C.F .R. § 1003.2, a motion t o r econsider or a motion to reopen is within the discretion of the BIA. W e have jurisdic tion to review the motions to reconsider and reopen. W e review the BIA’s denial of a motion to r e c onsider and a motion to reopen for abuse of dis cr etion. See Mungongo v
. Gonzales , 479 F .3d 531, 534 ( 7 th Cir

. 2 007) (motion to reconsider); Salim v
. Holder, 728 F .3d. 718, 720 (7th Cir

. 2013) (motion to reopen). W

e will not o v erturn the BIA unless their decision is “made without a rational exp l anation, inexplicably departed from established polices, or rested on an impermissible basis.” Salim , 728 F .3d at 720 (citing Awad v
. Ashcroft, 328 F .3d 336, 341 for a motion to reopen; see also Mung ong o , 479 F .3d at 534 (citing Singh v
. Gonzales , 4 04 F .3d 1024, 1027 (7th Cir

. 2005) for a motion to reconsider)).No. 19-2081 5
In regard to Petitioners’ motion t o reconsider , they es s e ntially r ehashed th e same arguments already considered by the BIA, which include being targeted bec ause of membership in the particular social group proposed. While three threatening calls from an unidentified male w ere made ov er sev eral months, Petitioners w ere not physically harmed. Furthermore, Petitioners failed to show that relocation within Guatemala t o
av oid harm w as unreasonable or that a person acting in official capac ity in Guatemala will acquiesce to t orture inflicted by criminals who th reatened but nev er harmed Petitioners. Although the Petitioners disagreed with the BIA’s decision, “motions to reconsider

... are not re p lays o f the main ev ent.” Rehman v
. Gonzales , 441 F .3d 5 06, 5 08 (7th Cir

. 2006). Upon our review , w e find no legal or f a ctual defect, oral argument or
a sp e ct o f th e case, that w as ov erlooked or downright unreasonable. The BIA has show n tha t they hav e considered all of the merits before denying the Petitioners’ motion to reconsider

. In regard to a motion to reopen, the BIA h as broad d i scretion. INS v
. Doherty, 502 U

. S

. 314, 323 (1992). “A motion t o reope n proceedings shall state the new facts that will be prov en at a hearing.” 8 C

. F .R. § 1003.2(c)(1). “A motion t o reopen proceedings shall not be granted unless it appears t o the Board that the evidence sought t o be offered is material and

w as not av ailab le a nd could not hav e been discov ered or presented at the former h earing.” Id

. Here, the Petitioners argue that reopening is w arranted based on what they perceiv ed as new material evidence of the c onditions in Guatemala. H ow ev er

, the additional information submitted offered
no new material evidence. It only contributed to the evidence that Guatemala c ontinues to hav e widespread violence and6 No. 19-2081 crime, bu t it d id n ot address the deficiencies of their claims. The additional information did not change the assessment that the fears suffered by the P etitioners supported asylum.

III. CONCLUSION The Petitioners are unable to show that the BIA’s decision in denying their motions to reconsider and r eopen is an abuse of discretion. Therefore, the petition for review is DENIED.