Court Opinion

ID: 2797529
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2015-04-29 21:01:03.826203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:24:25.058928
License: Public Domain

FILED
                             NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           APR 29 2015

                                                                        MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                     UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                      U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

                             FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ESAU YASMIN FLORES,                              No. 11-70926

               Petitioner,                       Agency No. A088-359-697

 v.
                                                 MEMORANDUM*
LORETTA E. LYNCH, Attorney General,

               Respondent.

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

                             Submitted April 22, 2015**

Before:        GOODWIN, BYBEE, and CHRISTEN, Circuit Judges.

      Esau Yasmin Flores, a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions pro se for

review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order dismissing his appeal

from an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) decision denying his application for asylum,

withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture

          *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
          **
             The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
(“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review for substantial

evidence the agency’s factual findings. Silaya v. Mukasey, 524 F.3d 1066, 1070

(9th Cir. 2008). We deny in part and grant in part the petition for review, and we

remand.

      Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s denial of Flores’s CAT claim

because Flores failed to establish it is more likely than not he would be tortured by

or with the consent of the government if returned to El Salvador. See id at 1073.

      In denying Flores’s withholding of removal claim, the agency found Flores

failed to establish past persecution or a likelihood of future persecution on account

of a protected ground. When the IJ and BIA issued their decisions in this case,

they did not have the benefit of this court’s decisions in Henriquez-Rivas v.

Holder, 707 F.3d 1081 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc), Cordoba v. Holder, 726 F.3d
1106 (9th Cir. 2013), and Pirir-Boc v. Holder, 750 F.3d 1077 (9th Cir. 2014), or

the BIA’s decisions in Matter of M-E-V-G-, 26 I. & N. Dec. 227 (BIA 2014), and

Matter of W-G-R-, 26 I. & N. Dec. 208 (BIA 2014). Thus, we remand Flores’s

withholding of removal claim to determine the impact, if any, of these decisions.

See INS v. Ventura, 537 U.S. 12, 16-18 (2002) (per curiam).

                                          2                                     11-70926
   Each party shall bear its own costs for this petition for review.

   PETITION FOR REVIEW DENIED in part; GRANTED in part;

REMANDED.

                                       3                               11-70926