NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 23 2022 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT DOUGLAS ALVARO PERDOMO- No. 20-70324 ROSALES, Agency No. A206-625-931 Petitioner, v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted March 16, 2022** Before: SILVERMAN, MILLER, and BUMATAY, Circuit Judges. Douglas Alvaro Perdomo-Rosales, a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order dismissing his appeal from an immigration judge’s decision denying 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). application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). Our jurisdiction is governed by 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review for substantial evidence the agency’s factual findings. Conde Quevedo v. Barr, 947 F.3d 1238, 1241 (9th Cir. 2020). We review de novo questions of law. Bhattarai v. Lynch, 835 F.3d 1037, 1042 (9th Cir. 2016). We deny in part and dismiss in part the petition for review. Substantial evidence supports the agency’s determination that Perdomo- Rosales failed to establish that the harm he experienced in El Salvador in 2014 was on account of the proposed particular social group of “witnesses who . . . the gangs think have testified against them” or that the harm he experienced during the 2012 robbery in El Salvador was on account of a protected ground. See INS v. Elias- Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 483 (1992) (an applicant “must provide some evidence of [motive], direct or circumstantial”). Perdomo-Rosales does not raise, and therefore waives, any challenge to the agency’s dispositive grounds for denying his claims based on his proposed social groups of “prosecutorial witnesses who testify against gangs” and “young El Salvadoran males who refuse to cooperate with the Gang 18”. See Lopez-Vasquez v. Holder, 706 F.3d 1072, 1079-80 (9th Cir. 2013) (issues not specifically raised and argued in a party’s opening brief are waived). We lack jurisdiction to consider Perdomo-Rosales’s contentions as to the particular social groups he raises in the first instance in his opening brief because 2 20-70324 he did not raise them to the agency. See Barron v. Ashcroft, 358 F.3d 674, 677-78 (9th Cir. 2004) (court lacks jurisdiction to review claims not presented to the agency). Substantial evidence supports the agency’s determination that Perdomo- Rosales could avoid future persecution by relocating within El Salvador and it would be reasonable for him to do so. See 8 C.F.R. §§ 1208.13 (b)(2)(ii), (3)(i), 1208.16(b)(2), (3); Duran-Rodriguez v. Barr, 918 F.3d 1025, 1029 (9th Cir. 2019) (“[A]n applicant does not have a well-founded fear of persecution if the applicant could avoid persecution by relocating to another part of the applicant’s country of nationality ... and under all the circumstances it would …
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