Court Opinion

ID: 9375407
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-27 18:00:54.180811+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:58.692949
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        FEB 27 2023
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

XIOMARA ISABEL HURTADO-                         No.    18-71541
PALACIOS; MADIGAN NICOL AMAYA-
HURTADO; DOUGLAS BLADIMIR                       Agency Nos.       A208-273-740
AMAYA-HURTADO, AKA Douglas                                        A208-273-741
Bladimir Hurtado-Palacios,                                        A208-273-742

                Petitioners,
                                                MEMORANDUM*
 v.

MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,

                Respondent.

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

                          Submitted February 21, 2023**

Before: OWENS, LEE, and BUMATAY, Circuit Judges.

      Xiomara Isabel Hurtado-Palacios and her two minor children are natives and

citizens of El Salvador. They petition for review of the Board of Immigration

      *
             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).
Appeals’ (BIA) decision denying their application for asylum, 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.

      The petitioners also challenge the agency’s adverse credibility finding, but

we need not decide this issue. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s conclusion

that, assuming credibility, the petitioners failed to establish eligibility for asylum,

withholding of removal, or CAT protection.

      1. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s conclusion that the petitioners

failed to establish their entitlement to asylum and withholding of removal.

Palacios asserts that she is a member of the particular social group composed of

“individuals who have taken concrete steps to oppose gang membership and gang

authority.” See Pirir-Boc v. Holder, 750 F.3d 1077, 1084–85 (9th Cir. 2014). But

the record does not compel the conclusion that Palacios defied the demands made

of her by gang members, and she thus fails to demonstrate that the BIA erred when

it concluded that she did not belong to this particular social group. See Parada v.

Sessions, 902 F.3d 901, 908–09 (9th Cir. 2018).

      Nor did the BIA err in determining that Palacios and her children were not

persecuted and do not have a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of

their family relationship to Palacios’s aunt. The petitioners admit that gang

members did not specifically target Palacios’s aunt; rather, the gang members

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targeted all similarly situated shopkeepers. See Zetino v. Holder, 622 F.3d 1007,

1016 (9th Cir. 2010) (“An alien’s desire to be free from harassment by criminals

motivated by theft or random violence by gang members bears no nexus to a

protected ground.”). And Palacios’s aunt still lives in El Salvador and has not been

harmed by gangs. See Sinha v. Holder, 564 F.3d 1015, 1022 (9th Cir. 2015) (“We

have . . . held that a petitioner’s fear of future persecution is weakened, even

undercut, when similarly-situated family members living in the petitioner's home

country are not harmed.” (quotation marks and citation omitted)).

      2. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s conclusion that the petitioners

failed to establish their entitlement to CAT protection. To support their CAT

claims, the petitioners reassert the same arguments that they raised in support of

asylum and withholding of removal. But even assuming that the petitioners would

experience severe pain or suffering upon their return to El Salvador, they provide

minimal evidence to support the conclusion that such pain and suffering would be

inflicted by, or with the acquiescence of, the Salvadoran government. 8 C.F.R.

§ 1208.16(c)(2). A reasonable factfinder thus would not be compelled to find the

petitioners eligible for CAT protection.

      DENIED.

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