United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Argued March 3, 2020 

Decided March 24, 2020 

Before 

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge 

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge 

AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge

No. 19-1996 

LEYLA E. HERNANDEZ-DIAZ and 

ALISSON M. MORAN-HERNANDEZ, 

 Petitioners, 

v. 

WILLIAM P. BARR, 

Attorney General of the United States, 

 Respondent.

 Petition for Review of an Order of the 

Board of Immigration Appeals. 

Nos. A208-989-725 and A208-989-726 

ORDER 

 Leyla Hernandez-Diaz, a citizen of El Salvador, petitions, along with her minor 

daughter, for review of the denial of her applications for asylum and withholding of 

removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act. She sought relief based on threats 

she received from gang members because she was a police officer. Because substantial 

evidence supports the immigration judge’s decision that the threats were too vague and 

speculative to establish persecution and were insufficiently connected to her 

occupation, we deny the petition for review. 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 19-1996 Page 2 

Background 

Hernandez-Diaz entered the United States without proper documentation in 

May 2016 with her minor daughter, Alisson Moran-Hernandez, who is also a petitioner 

in this case. (The daughter’s applications are derivative of her mother’s.) The 

Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings, and Hernandez-Diaz 

conceded that she was removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(7)(A). She applied for 

asylum and withholding of removal based on the hazard that MS-13 gang members 

posed to her life because she was a police officer. She also sought protection under the 

Convention Against Torture, but she does not challenge the denial of that relief. 

At a hearing before an immigration judge (“IJ”), Hernandez-Diaz and her 

husband (who had left El Salvador separately) testified that, for years, they had been 

national police officers in El Salvador without incident. That changed in August 2015, 

when Hernandez-Diaz was in her home and unknown people began banging on the 

exterior wall of the house. She turned off the lights and hid with her daughter. She 

called her co-workers on the police force, but by the time they arrived, the perpetrators 

had fled. Hernandez-Diaz never saw them, but she believed that they were members of 

the MS-13 gang because it is the dominant gang in the area. She testified that gang 

members targeted her for “the simple fact that [she and her husband] are police 

officers.” The gangs knew that they were police officers, Hernandez-Diaz and her 

husband thought, because they wore uniforms while on duty, were photographed 

while working, and they hung their washed uniforms on a clothesline outside to dry. 

The next month, MS-13 gang members shot guns into the air in HernandezDiaz’s neighborhood. Police officers responded to the scene and arrested three gang 

members. The gang members had fired the guns, Hernandez-Diaz believed, to threaten 

her. A neighbor later warned Hernandez-Diaz and her husband to be careful because 

someone had threated to kill them and their daughter. Hernandez-Diaz and her 

husband believed that gang members made this threat because they mistakenly thought 

that Hernandez-Diaz had called the police during the shooting incident. 

Three months later (after changes in work schedules required Hernandez-Diaz to 

be at home without her husband at night), she and her daughter began spending nights 

with her in-laws because she no longer felt safe in her home. She also requested time off 

work because she was afraid for her safety. 
No. 19-1996 Page 3 

Then, in March 2016, Hernandez-Diaz and her husband were returning to their 

home when they saw people hiding in the bushes outside. As they rushed inside, they 

heard the hammer of a gun cock. Although she did not see the faces of the figures, 

Hernandez-Diaz believed they were MS-13 gang members because no one else would 

be targeting her. 

Hernandez-Diaz and her husband also testified about four police officers they 

knew personally who were murdered by gangs between 2015 and 2017. The first was 

killed when she intervened to stop a robbery on a bus. Two others were ambushed and 

murdered by gang members when they responded to an emergency. The fourth was 

ambushed, tied up by his hands and feet, and killed. 

In April 2016, Hernandez-Diaz left the police force, and she and her daughter 

fled El Salvador. Hernandez-Diaz testified that she is afraid to return there because she 

believes that the MS-13 gang would recognize her as a former police officer (based on 

photographs and her mannerisms) and kill her. Gangs in El Salvador kill police officers, 

Hernandez-Diaz testified, for the “simple fact that we are police officers” and because 

gangs derive power from those slayings. 

After the hearing, the IJ denied her applications. She found Hernandez-Diaz 

credible but concluded that the past harm did not rise to the level of persecution. The IJ 

also found that Hernandez-Diaz had not shown a well-founded fear of future 

persecution because there was no reason to believe that gang members would single her 

out if she returned to El Salvador, and she did not show a pattern or practice of 

persecution of similarly situated individuals. And, although the IJ did not discuss the 

proposed social groups (“police officers in El Salvador,” “honest police officers in El 

Salvador,” or “former police officers in El Salvador”), she determined that even if 

Hernandez-Diaz had demonstrated persecution, she failed to show that the harm she 

suffered, or might suffer if she returned, was based on her employment as a police 

officer. Because Hernandez-Diaz could not establish asylum eligibility, she could not 

meet the higher standard for withholding of removal. Hernandez-Diaz appealed to the 

Board of Immigration Appeals, which affirmed. She now petitions this court for review. 

 

Analysis 

Because the Board affirmed without opinion, this court directly reviews the IJ’s 

decision, examining legal conclusions de novo and factual conclusions to determine 
No. 19-1996 Page 4 

whether they are supported by substantial evidence. Dominguez-Pulido v. Lynch, 

821 F.3d 837, 841 (7th Cir. 2016). 

Hernandez-Diaz first challenges the IJ’s conclusion that she did not demonstrate 

past persecution to support her claim of asylum under 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(1). 

Persecution must rise above mere harassment—it involves “the use of significant

physical force against a person’s body . . . or nonphysical harm of equal gravity.” 

Stanojkova v. Holder, 645 F.3d 943, 948 (7th Cir. 2011) (emphasis in original). HernandezDiaz contends that the purported gang members banging on the walls of her home, 

firing shots into the air in her neighborhood, hiding in her bushes and cocking a gun, 

and threatening her family with death, considered together, rise to the level of 

persecution. She urges that these incidents constitute “credible threat[s] to inflict grave 

physical harm.” Stanojkova, 645 F.3d at 948. 

But the IJ permissibly concluded that Hernandez-Diaz had not suffered past 

persecution. Threats will amount to persecution only in the most extreme 

circumstances: they must be “credible, imminent and severe.” N.L.A. v. Holder, 744 F.3d 

425, 431 (7th Cir. 2014). Although the incidents described by Hernandez-Diaz are 

frightening, the IJ reasonably concluded that those threats were too “vague, 

unsubstantiated, and unfulfilled” to rise to the level of persecution. Compare OrellanaArias v. Sessions, 865 F.3d 476, 487 (7th Cir. 2017) (finding of past persecution not 

compelled where gang members physically attacked petitioner but inflicted only minor 

injuries and made unfulfilled death threats), with N.L.A., 744 F.3d at 432–34 (threats 

directed at petitioner by guerillas who murdered her uncle and kidnapped her father 

compelled a finding of past persecution). And although the death threat relayed to 

Hernandez-Diaz by her neighbor is troubling, it was a vague rumor, and there is no 

evidence that any gang member attempted to follow through. See Hernandez-Baena v. 

Gonzales, 417 F.3d 720, 723 (7th Cir. 2005). 

The IJ also did not err in concluding that Hernandez-Diaz fell short of 

establishing a well-founded fear of future persecution under 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(2). A 

well-founded fear of future persecution is one that is “subjectively genuine and 

objectively reasonable in light of credible evidence.” Hernandez-Garcia v. Barr, 930 F.3d 

915, 920 (7th Cir. 2019) (quoting Musollari v. Mukasey, 545 F.3d 505, 508 (7th Cir. 2008)). 

The IJ concluded that Hernandez-Diaz met the subjective prong. And Hernandez-Diaz 

contends that she also satisfied the objective component by showing both a reasonable 

probability that she will be singled out for persecution in El Salvador and a pattern or 

practice of persecution of an identifiable group to which she belongs. See Hernandez-
No. 19-1996 Page 5 

Garcia, 930 F.3d at 920 (one or the other would suffice). Hernandez-Diaz has not shown 

that her fear of future prosecution is objectively reasonable. 

First, Hernandez-Diaz failed to offer “specific, detailed evidence indicating that it 

would be more likely than not that [she] would be individually targeted for harm” if 

she returns to El Salvador. Orellana-Arias, 865 F.3d at 488. The record supports the IJ’s 

conclusion that Hernandez-Diaz lacked evidence that gang members would even know 

if she returns, or, if they did, that they would target her for harm. Gang members never 

went beyond threats or menacing conduct toward Hernandez-Diaz when she lived in El 

Salvador, and there is no evidence that the MS-13 gang looked for her after she fled or 

warned her against returning. Only her own speculation supports her argument that 

gang members will target her for violence if she returns. 

Second, substantial evidence supported the IJ’s conclusion that Hernandez-Diaz 

failed to show a pattern or practice of persecution of current or former police officers. 

This would require evidence of “a systematic, pervasive, or organized effort to kill, 

imprison, or severely injure members of the protected group.” Georgieva v. Holder, 

751 F.3d 514, 523 (7th Cir. 2014) (quoting Mitreva v. Gonzales, 417 F.3d 761, 765 (7th Cir. 

2005)). The IJ reasonably found that the news articles and country reports in the record 

evince a country-wide violent gang problem affecting the entire population of 

El Salvador. And she correctly concluded that such generalized conditions are 

insufficient to show a pattern or practice of persecution of police officers. See HernandezGarcia, 930 F.3d at 920–21. That same evidence makes clear that gang violence has 

caused substantial hardships for police officers in particular; however, the evidence 

does not reflect the extreme extent of police-specific mistreatment necessary to overturn 

the IJ on this point. See, e.g., id. (“shocking level of violence against women” insufficient 

to show systemic persecution of women by gangs); Krishnapillai v. Holder, 563 F.3d 606, 

620–21 (7th Cir. 2009) (reports of extreme human rights deprivations suffered by ethnic 

minority insufficient to compel finding of pattern or practice of persecution). 

 

Moreover, to reverse the IJ’s finding with respect to either past or future 

persecution, this court would have to conclude that the El Salvadoran government is 

complicit in MS-13 gang violence or is “unable or unwilling to take steps to prevent” it. 

N.L.A., 744 F.3d at 440. But the record here suggests that, although the gang violence 

has not been controlled, there is aggressive policing and state action to suppress gang 

violence. Hernandez-Diaz did not put forth evidence that the government ignores or is 

complicit in the gang problem; indeed, she testified that police responded when the 
No. 19-1996 Page 6 

purported gang members individuals banged on the walls of her home and fired 

weapons into the air in her neighborhood. 

Hernandez-Diaz also insists that she established the requisite connection 

between the purported persecution and her status as a (now former) police officer. The 

government argues that Hernandez-Diaz waived this argument, but she simply falls 

short of supporting it. To show that persecution was based on membership in a social 

group, a petitioner must identify a group that is cognizable under the Act and establish 

a nexus between the persecution and the membership in the group. Orellana-Arias, 

865 F.3d at 484. The IJ assumed that the proposed social groups were cognizable but 

reasonably concluded that Hernandez-Diaz had no evidence to support her nexus 

argument. See id. In two of the incidents Hernandez-Diaz described, it is unclear 

whether gang members were involved at all. Even assuming they were, she cites 

nothing but her and her husband’s conclusory testimony that the threatening incidents 

she experienced “occurred because [Hernandez-Diaz] is a police officer” and “just for 

being a police officer.” That is one permissible inference based on circumstantial 

evidence. See Bueso-Avila v. Holder, 663 F.3d 934, 938 (7th Cir. 2011). But only 

Hernandez-Diaz’s and her husband’s subjective beliefs support their suspected motive 

as compared to any other possible one; without more, their inference is not “so 

compelling that no reasonable fact-finder could fail to find” that gang members targeted 

Hernandez-Diaz based on her occupation. Id. (quoting Jamal-Daoud v. Gonzales, 403 F.3d 

918, 922 (7th Cir. 2005)). 

We affirm the IJ’s decision denying Hernandez-Diaz’s application for asylum 

because she did not establish past persecution or a well-founded fear of future 

persecution as a result of being a police officer. She also challenges the denial of 

withholding of removal, but the standard for that relief is more stringent. See

Dominguez-Pulido, 821 F.3d at 845. To qualify, a claimant must demonstrate a clear 

probability that she will face persecution if removed. Id. Because Hernandez-Diaz 

cannot establish eligibility for asylum, she necessarily cannot satisfy the higher 

standard for withholding of removal. 

For these reasons, we DENY the petition for review.