Court Opinion

ID: 9493391
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:06:37.758076+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:48.803579
License: Public Domain

PREGERSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result:
I concur in the denial of relief because there is absolutely no evidence in the ad*1152ministrative record that either the Guatemalan military or the guerrillas attempted to recruit Pedro-Mateo because he is Kan-jobal Indian. Thus, neither of the two grounds for relief that Pedro-Mateo raises on appeal, race and membership in a social group, have merit. That is all that the court needs to decide to resolve this case.
I write separately, however, for two reasons. First, because no evidence supports Pedro-Mateo’s petition, it is not necessary for the court to decide whether Mayan Indians of Guatemala comprise a “social group” within the meaning of 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). The majority’s overreaching is particularly inappropriate because the social group identified by Pedro-Mateo is considerably narrower than the entire indigenous population of Guatemala.
Second, while Pedro-Mateo’s petition fails for lack of evidence, I do not read the opinion as foreclosing relief to another asylum applicant who proceeds on the same theory as did Pedro-Mateo. In other words, an asylum applicant is entitled to relief if he shows that an army selectively recruited members of a protected group, regardless of whether the army also conscripted “a large percentage of the population of a disputed area.”