Court Opinion

ID: 9905148
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-28 21:01:18.394612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:04.240880
License: Public Domain

USCA4 Appeal: 23-1464      Doc: 20         Filed: 11/27/2023    Pg: 1 of 3

                                            UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                              No. 23-1464

        SONIA MONROY-MORALES; G.O.M.,

                            Petitioners,

                     v.

        MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General,

                            Respondent.

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

        Submitted: November 21, 2023                                Decided: November 27, 2023

        Before WILKINSON and NIEMEYER, Circuit Judges, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit
        Judge.

        Petition denied by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        ON BRIEF: Mark J. Devine, LAW OFFICES OF MARK J. DEVINE, LLC, Charleston,
        South Carolina, for Petitioners. Brian M. Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney
        General, Jonathan A. Robbins, Assistant Director, Bernard A. Joseph, Senior Litigation
        Counsel, Civil Division, Office of Immigration Litigation, UNITED STATES
        DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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        PER CURIAM:

               Sonia Monroy-Morales and her minor daughter, G.O.M., natives and citizens of

        Honduras, petition for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissing

        their appeal from the immigration judge’s decision denying Monroy-Morales’ applications

        for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture

        (CAT). * We deny the petition for review.

               We have reviewed the administrative record, including the transcript of the merits

        hearing and all supporting evidence, and considered the arguments pressed on appeal in

        conjunction with the record and the relevant authorities. We conclude that the record

        evidence does not compel a ruling contrary to any of the agency’s factual findings, see 8

        U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B), and that substantial evidence supports the immigration judge’s

        dispositive ruling, affirmed by the Board, that Monroy-Morales failed to establish the

        requisite nexus between the claimed protected ground and the asserted past persecution or

        the feared future persecution, see Toledo-Vasquez v. Garland, 27 F.4th 281, 287-91 (4th

        Cir. 2022) (addressing similar nexus theory and reiterating that not every threat that relates

        to a noncitizen’s “family member is made on account of family ties” and that “the nexus

        requirement is primarily about the persecutor’s reasons for targeting an individual”

        (internal quotation marks omitted)); Cedillos-Cedillos v. Barr, 962 F.3d 817, 824-26 (4th

        Cir. 2020) (explaining that, in conducting substantial evidence review of the agency’s

               *
                G.O.M. was a rider on Monroy-Morales’ asylum application. See 8 U.S.C.
        § 1158(b)(3).

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        nexus determination, this court “is limited to considering whether their conclusion is

        supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence” (internal quotation marks

        omitted)). See generally Velasquez v. Sessions, 866 F.3d 188, 195-96 (4th Cir. 2017)

        (recognizing the established principle that “the asylum statute was not intended as a

        panacea for the numerous personal altercations that invariably characterize . . . social

        relationships” and distinguishing the type of personally motivated conflicts that generally

        “fall[ ] outside the scope of asylum protection” (cleaned up)). Our review of the record

        likewise confirms that substantial evidence supports the denial of Monroy-Morales’ claim

        for relief under the CAT. See Nasrallah v. Barr, 140 S. Ct. 1683, 1692 (2020) (providing

        standard of review).

               Accordingly, we deny the petition for review for the reasons stated by the Board.

        See In re Monroy-Morales (B.I.A. Mar. 31, 2023). 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

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