Court Opinion

ID: 9950982
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-15 15:01:30.631458+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:35:42.504410
License: Public Domain

21-6486
    Vanegas-Moreno v. Garland
                                                                                                       BIA
                                                                                                 Sponzo, IJ
                                                                                               A206 775 978

                           UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                               FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

                                    SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY
ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF
APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY
ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL
APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY
CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY
COUNSEL.

          At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second
    Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley
    Square, in the City of New York, on the 15th day of March, two thousand twenty-
    four.

    PRESENT:
                      JOHN M. WALKER, JR.,
                      RICHARD J. SULLIVAN,
                      BETH ROBINSON,
                     Circuit Judges.
    _____________________________________

    CECILIA GUADALUPE VANEGAS-
    MORENO,
              Petitioner,

                      v.                                                           No. 21-6486
                                                                                   NAC
    MERRICK B. GARLAND, UNITED
    STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL,
             Respondent. ∗

    _____________________________________

    ∗
        The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to amend the official case caption as set forth above.
FOR PETITIONER:                    H. Esteban Figueroa-Brusi, New York, NY.

FOR RESPONDENT:                    Brian M. Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant
                                   Attorney General; Shelley R. Goad, Assistant
                                   Director; Kristen A. Giuffreda, Trial Attorney,
                                   Office of Immigration Litigation, United
                                   States Department of Justice, Washington,
                                   DC.

      UPON DUE CONSIDERATION of this petition for review of a Board of

Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) decision, it is hereby ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

DECREED that the petition for review is DENIED.

      Petitioner Cecilia Guadalupe Vanegas-Moreno, a native and citizen of El

Salvador, seeks review of a decision of the BIA affirming a decision of an

Immigration Judge (“IJ”) that denied her application for asylum, withholding of

removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). In re Cecilia

Guadalupe Venegas-Moreno, No. A206 775 978 (B.I.A. Aug. 9, 2021), aff’g No. A206

775 978 (Immigr. Ct. N.Y.C. July 1, 2019). We assume the parties’ familiarity with

the underlying facts and procedural history.

      We review the IJ’s decision as supplemented and modified by the BIA. See

Xue Hong Yang v. U.S. Dep’t of Just., 426 F.3d 520, 522 (2d Cir. 2005); Yan Chen v.

Gonzales, 417 F.3d 268, 271 (2d Cir. 2005). We review the agency’s factual findings

to determine whether they are supported by substantial evidence and review the

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agency’s conclusions of law de novo. See Lecaj v. Holder, 616 F.3d 111, 114 (2d Cir.

2010). “[T]he administrative findings of fact are conclusive unless any reasonable

adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.”                                  8 U.S.C.

§ 1252(b)(4)(B).

         Vanegas-Moreno advances various arguments as to how the agency erred

in denying her claims for relief from removal, which were rooted in her contention

that a gang extorted members of her family and threatened to kill them if they did

not pay. We reject each of her arguments for the reasons set forth below.

    I.      Asylum and Withholding of Removal 1

         In affirming the IJ’s denial of Vanegas-Moreno’s asylum and withholding of

removal claims, the BIA relied solely on the IJ’s determination that she failed to

establish a nexus to a protected ground. We therefore limit our review to that

determination. See Xue Hong Yang, 426 F.3d at 522. To qualify for asylum and

withholding of removal, an applicant must establish “a sufficiently strong nexus”

between suffered or feared harm and a protected ground of race, religion,

nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Castro

1 Although Vanegas-Moreno’s appellate brief mentions her CAT claim and asserts that “the
agency’s CAT reasoning . . . [was] insufficient,” Pet. Br. at 35; see also id. at 3, we conclude that she
abandoned this claim by failing to advance any meaningful challenge to the agency’s CAT
decision on appeal, see Yueqing Zhang v. Gonzales, 426 F.3d 540, 545 n.7 (2d Cir. 2005).
                                                   3
v. Holder, 597 F.3d 93, 100 (2d Cir. 2010); see also 8 U.S.C. §§ 1158(b)(1)(B)(i),

1231(b)(3)(A). That is, the applicant must show that a protected ground was or

will be “at least one central reason for” the claimed persecution. 8 U.S.C.

§ 1158(b)(1)(B)(i); Quituizaca v. Garland, 52 F.4th 103, 114 (2d Cir. 2022) (deferring

to BIA’s application of “one central reason” standard to withholding of removal

claims); see also Acharya v. Holder, 761 F.3d 289, 297 (2d Cir. 2014) (explaining that

relief “may be granted where there is more than one motive for mistreatment, as

long as at least one central reason for the mistreatment is on account of a protected

ground” (internal quotation marks omitted)). To make this showing, an applicant

“must provide some evidence of [a persecutor’s motives], direct or circumstantial.”

I.N.S. v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 483 (1992).

       Here, substantial evidence supports the agency’s determination that

Vanegas-Moreno failed to demonstrate that the harms she suffered (or fears she

would suffer) were on account of a family-based social group. 2               See Gjolaj v.

Bureau of Citizenship & Immigr. Servs., 468 F.3d 140, 143 (2d Cir. 2006) (applying

substantial evidence standard to nexus determination); Edimo-Doualla v. Gonzales,

2 Vanegas-Moreno has abandoned her claim that she was targeted as part of the social group of
“young Salvadoran women bereft of protection from gangs” by failing to include any arguments
regarding this group in her appellate brief. Certified Admin. Record at 3 (internal quotation
marks omitted); see also Yueqing Zhang, 426 F.3d at 545 n.7.
                                             4
464 F.3d 276, 282–83 (2d Cir. 2006) (same). Indeed, she provided no evidence that

gang members extorted or threatened her relatives because they were motivated

by animosity towards her family.      See Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. at 483.     To the

contrary, when the IJ asked why the gang “want[ed] to harm [he]r grandparents,”

Vanegas-Moreno replied, “[t]hey requested money from them.”                  Certified

Admin. Record at 166.       She further testified that her grandparents had not

encountered any difficulties after making one payment to the gang in 2013, despite

continuing to reside in the same house in El Salvador. It is well-established that

harm stemming from “general crime conditions” does not constitute persecution

on account of a protected ground. Zelaya-Moreno v. Wilkinson, 989 F.3d 190, 202

(2d Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Ucelo-Gomez v. Mukasey,

509 F.3d 70, 73–74 (2d Cir. 2007) (upholding denial of social-group claim where

purported persecutors were motivated by increasing their own wealth). On this

record, the agency did not err in finding that these gang members were motivated

by the criminal purpose of extorting certain of Vanegas-Moreno’s family members

for monetary gain, and that Vanegas-Moreno otherwise failed to establish a nexus

between the alleged harm and her family membership.

   II.     Due Process

         Vanegas-Moreno additionally argues that the BIA failed to accord her due
                                        5
process because it affirmed the IJ’s decision in a single-member decision – rather

than in a three-member panel decision – and the BIA member who issued the

decision is biased against female Central American immigrants. But there is no

question that a single member of the BIA may issue an order “affirming,

modifying, or remanding” an IJ’s decision, 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(5), and “we lack

jurisdiction to review a claim that a single BIA member erred in deciding to resolve

unilaterally an appeal of an IJ’s order and not to refer the case to a three-member

BIA panel,” Kambolli v. Gonzales, 449 F.3d 454, 465 (2d Cir. 2006). As to Vanegas-

Moreno’s claim of bias, her only evidence of this purported bias is the BIA’s

unfavorable decision in her case, which, without more, is insufficient. 3 See Liteky

v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 555 (1994) (noting that “judicial rulings alone almost

never constitute a valid basis for a bias or partiality motion”). And she has not

otherwise made any showing that she “was denied a full and fair opportunity to

present her claims” or that the agency “deprived her of fundamental fairness” as

3 To the extent that Vanegas-Moreno now bases her bias claims on statistics regarding the BIA
member’s denial rate and characterizations of the BIA member’s behavior in other cases,
Vanegas-Moreno did not present such evidence or arguments before the agency. See 8 U.S.C.
§ 1252(b)(4)(A) (providing that “the court of appeals shall decide the petition only on the
administrative record on which the order of removal is based”); Xiao Xing Ni v. Gonzales, 494 F.3d
260, 269 (2d Cir. 2007) (explaining that “the agency regulations set forth procedures to reopen a
case before the BIA for the taking of additional evidence”). In any event, that evidence does not
establish that the BIA member exhibited any bias in the handling of her case.
                                                6
is required to establish a due process violation. Burger v. Gonzales, 498 F.3d 131,

134 (2d Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted).

      For the foregoing reasons, the petition for review is DENIED. All pending

motions and applications are DENIED and stays VACATED.

                                      FOR THE COURT:
                                      Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

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