PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 19-1954 SONIA ARACELI PEREZ VASQUEZ; J.S.G.P., Petitioners, v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: March 11, 2021 Decided: July 9, 2021 Before KING, WYNN, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges. Petition for review granted in part and dismissed in part, and remand awarded by published opinion. Judge Wynn wrote the opinion, in which Judge King and Judge Harris joined. ARGUED: Jonathan Westreich, WESTREICH LAW, Alexandria, Virginia, for Petitioners. Margot Lynne Carter, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Leslie McKay, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. WYNN, Circuit Judge: Sonia Araceli Perez Vasquez (“Petitioner”) and her minor daughter, natives and citizens of Honduras, appeal from the Board of Immigration Appeals’ final order affirming the denial of their application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. 1 The central issue on appeal is whether the immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals erred in concluding that Petitioner failed to demonstrate that she was persecuted on account of her membership in her proposed particular social group, namely her nuclear family. For the reasons explained below, we answer that question in the affirmative. Accordingly, we grant the petition in part and remand for further proceedings. I. A. In June 2016, Petitioner was living with her eleven-year-old daughter and her parents in Villanueva, Honduras. 2 Early that month, a young man called Petitioner; claimed to “represent[] a gang group”; and demanded that she begin paying the gang a monthly fee of 1,000 lempiras (roughly $43.00). A.R. 226. 3 The man informed Petitioner that the gang, 1 Because Sonia Araceli Perez Vasquez is the lead applicant/petitioner in this case, our opinion focuses on her claims. 2 “We detail th[e] [relevant] events as [Petitioner] described them in [her affidavit and] testimony, an account that the [immigration judge] found credible and that the [Board of Immigration Appeals] did not dispute.” Crespin-Valladares v. Holder, 632 F.3d 117, 119– 20 (4th Cir. 2011); see also 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(a) (“The testimony of the applicant, if credible, may be sufficient to sustain the burden of proof without corroboration.”). 3 Citations to “A.R. _” refer to the Administrative Record filed by the parties in this appeal. 2 which is unspecified in the record, was aware that she traveled to San Pedro Sula every month to withdraw money that her common-law husband sent to her from the United States. The man also told Petitioner that the gang knew where she lived and what school her daughter attended, and he warned her that the gang would kill them both if Petitioner did not comply with the gang’s demand for monthly payments. True to the young man’s word, at the end of June and every month that followed, gang members came to Petitioner’s …
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