Court Opinion

ID: 9405271
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-27 21:00:54.989533+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:20.551091
License: Public Domain

USCA4 Appeal: 22-1566      Doc: 33         Filed: 06/26/2023    Pg: 1 of 3

                                            UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                              No. 22-1566

        LESTENIA ELIZABETH VILLACORTA-SANTA MARIA; K.A.V.,

                            Petitioners,

                     v.

        MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General,

                            Respondent.

        On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals.

        Submitted: June 22, 2023                                          Decided: June 26, 2023

        Before HARRIS and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit Judge.

        Petition denied by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        ON BRIEF: Luke A. Frazier, JASKOT LAW, Baltimore, Maryland, for Petitioners. Brian
        Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, John S. Hogan,
        Assistant Director, Deitz P. Lefort, Office of Immigration Litigation, UNITED STATES
        DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
USCA4 Appeal: 22-1566      Doc: 33         Filed: 06/26/2023     Pg: 2 of 3

        PER CURIAM:

               Petitioners Lestenia Elizabeth Villacorta-Santa Maria, and her minor son, K.A.V.,

        natives and citizens of El Salvador, petition for review of an order of the Board of

        Immigration Appeals dismissing their appeal from the immigration judge’s oral decision

        denying Villacorta-Santa Maria’s applications for asylum and withholding of removal. ∗

        We deny the petition for review.

               We have considered the parties’ arguments in conjunction with the administrative

        record and the relevant authorities, including our holding in Morales v. Garland, 51 F.4th

        553, 556-58 (4th Cir. 2022) (affirming agency’s ruling that petitioner’s advanced particular

        social group of “Salvadorean women who are witnesses to gang criminal activity and

        targeted because they filed a police report” failed on both the particularity and social

        distinction requirements for a cognizable “particular social group”). Having reviewed the

        issue de novo, see Morales, 51 F.4th at 557, we discern no error in the agency’s holding

        that the particular social group advanced by Villacorta-Santa Maria—“Salvadoran

        witnesses to gang crime”—was not legally cognizable. Specifically, we agree with the

        Board that the proposed social group was overly broad in that it encompassed any

        Salvadoran who witnessed any type of gang crime; thus, we agree that the proposed group

               ∗
                 The record establishes that, on remand from the Board, the immigration judge later
        granted Villacorta-Santa Maria’s application for relief under the Convention Against
        Torture. Accordingly, we do not consider the agency’s initial adjudication of that
        application.

                                                     2
USCA4 Appeal: 22-1566      Doc: 33        Filed: 06/26/2023     Pg: 3 of 3

        failed to “sharpen the boundary lines” for group inclusion so as to render it sufficiently

        particular. Id.

               Accordingly, we deny the petition for review. See In re Villacorta-Santa Maria

        (B.I.A. Apr. 26, 2022). We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal

        contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would

        not aid the decisional process.

                                                                             PETITION DENIED

                                                    3