Court Opinion

ID: 9379060
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-14 16:00:52.534754+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:44.892393
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                        FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                       MAR 14 2023
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                              FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MARCOS ISRAEL HERNANDEZ-                        No.    18-72842
RODRIGUEZ, AKA Marcos Israel
Hernandez,                                      Agency No. A099-481-148

                Petitioner,
                                                MEMORANDUM*
 v.

MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,

                Respondent.

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

                              Submitted March 14, 2023**
                               San Francisco, California

Before: FRIEDLAND, BADE, and KOH, Circuit Judges.

      Marcos Israel Hernandez-Rodriguez, a native and citizen of El Salvador,

petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) dismissal of his

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

      **
             The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
appeal from a decision of the Immigration Judge (IJ) denying his application for

withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture

(CAT). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we deny the petition for

review.

1.    To be eligible for withholding of removal, Petitioner must demonstrate a

“clear probability” of future persecution on account of a statutorily protected

ground. Garcia v. Holder, 749 F.3d 785, 791 (9th Cir. 2014). A petitioner may

generate a presumption of eligibility for withholding of removal by demonstrating

past persecution. See Aden v. Wilkinson, 989 F.3d 1073, 1086 (9th Cir. 2021). We

do not disturb the BIA’s conclusion that the unfulfilled threat against Petitioner for

failure to pay or join the Mara Salvatrucha (MS) gang does not show that he

experienced past persecution in El Salvador. See e.g., Lim v. I.N.S., 224 F.3d 929,

936 (9th Cir. 2000) (“Threats standing alone . . . constitute past persecution in only

a small category of cases, and only when the threats are so menacing as to cause

significant actual ‘suffering or harm.’” (citation omitted)).

      Substantial evidence also supports the BIA’s determination that Petitioner

did not demonstrate that his membership in either of the proposed particular social

groups “landowners in El Salvador” or “family of Camilo Hernandez,” or his anti-

gang political opinion, was a reason for his alleged persecution. See Macedo

Templos v. Wilkinson, 987 F.3d 877, 881–82 (9th Cir. 2021). The IJ and BIA

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recognized that the MS gang extorts both those who own land and those who do

not, and there was insufficient record evidence to show that the gang targeted

Petitioner specifically because of his family’s landowning status. Harm on account

of general crime and violence does not establish a nexus to a protected ground.

See Zetino v. Holder, 622 F.3d 1007, 1016 (9th Cir. 2010). Petitioner argues that

the nature of the persecution against his family differed from that of the general

populace because the MS gang seeks to displace landowners and use their land as a

base of operations. This argument is speculative, and the record does not compel a

contrary conclusion to that reached by the BIA.

      The agency’s conclusion that Petitioner was not targeted on account of his

familial relationship to Camilo Hernandez is also supported by substantial

evidence. The evidence indicates that the MS gang seeks payment from everybody

regardless of familial status, Petitioner’s sister lives in El Salvador unharmed, and,

although some of Petitioner’s cousins were killed by the gang, testimony indicates

that the reasons for those murders were either unknown or unrelated to

membership in the family. Cf. Jie Lin v. Ashcroft, 377 F.3d 1014, 1028–29 (9th

Cir. 2004). Petitioner offers only unsupported speculation that he was “targeted in

part initially because he was a member of his father’s landowning family” to

coerce his father to pay, and that he would not have been similarly threatened in

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the absence of a relationship to Camilo Hernandez.1

      Petitioner’s argument that the BIA erred in failing to recognize the “political

nature” of gangs in El Salvador and to meaningfully address his argument that he

feared persecution on account of his political opinion—a generalized opposition to

gangs—also fails. Merely refusing to join a gang or pay them, without more, does

not constitute a political opinion. See, e.g., Santos-Lemus v. Mukasey, 542 F.3d

738, 746–47 (9th Cir. 2008) (holding that resistance to a gang’s recruitment efforts,

by itself, does not constitute a political opinion for purposes of establishing a

protected ground), abrogated on other grounds by Henriquez-Rivas v. Holder, 707

F.3d 1081 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc).

2.    An applicant for CAT relief must demonstrate that he “will more likely than

not be tortured with the consent or acquiescence of a public official if removed” to

his native country. Xochihua-Jaimes v. Barr, 962 F.3d 1175, 1183 (9th Cir. 2020).

Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s denial of CAT relief because Petitioner

was not subject to past torture, the Salvadoran government endeavors to stop

gangs, and there is no evidence that Petitioner will be tortured with the consent or

      1
        Petitioner also argues that the IJ incorrectly assumed that the MS gang
could not have had multiple reasons for persecuting his family—that is, to obtain
money and to coerce Camilo Hernandez to pay. But the IJ did not incorrectly
apply the higher “one central reason” standard required for asylum claims to
Petitioner’s withholding of removal claim, and Petitioner’s claim fails for lack of a
nexus between his asserted harm and his proposed particular social groups.
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acquiescence of the government if returned to El Salvador.

      The evidence does not indicate that the government is willfully blind or

unwilling to oppose the MS gang; rather, the record demonstrates that the police

investigated the killings of Petitioner’s cousins and that, in some instances, the

gang members fled the police’s arrival. “Evidence that the police were aware of a

particular crime, but failed to bring the perpetrators to justice,” or evidence that a

government “has been generally ineffective in preventing or investigating criminal

activities,” without “evidence of corruption or other inability or unwillingness to

oppose criminal organizations,” is insufficient to establish acquiescence. Garcia-

Milian v. Holder, 755 F.3d 1026, 1034–35 (9th Cir. 2014).2

      Although the country conditions reports demonstrate some police corruption

in El Salvador, the evidence does not show that Petitioner faces a particularized,

ongoing risk of future torture. See Lopez v. Sessions, 901 F.3d 1071, 1078 (9th

Cir. 2018); Xiao Fei Zheng v. Holder, 644 F.3d 829, 835–36 (9th Cir. 2011).

Indeed, Petitioner’s sister lives in El Salvador unharmed, and Petitioner himself

returned to El Salvador where he remained safely for a time before he returned to

the United States.

      PETITION DENIED.

      2
       Moreover, Petitioner’s argument that the gangs are “in a state of war with
the government and police,” cuts against his claim that the government would
condone his torture by the gangs.
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