NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 22a0242n.06 No. 21-3312 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Jun 15, 2022 DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk ) WENDY ZUNIGA-MARTINEZ; NERY ) YULISSA MEJIA-ZUNIGA; BYRON ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW ANTONIO MEJIA-ZUNIGA, ) FROM THE BOARD OF Petitioners, ) IMMIGRATION APPEALS ) v. ) OPINION ) MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, ) Respondent. ) ) Before: CLAY, GRIFFIN, and STRANCH, Circuit Judges. CLAY, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which STRANCH, J., joined. GRIFFIN, J. (pp. 15–23), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. CLAY, Circuit Judge. Honduran native and citizen, Wendy Yulissa Zuniga-Martinez, individually and on behalf of her minor children, Nery Yulissa Mejia-Zuniga and Byron Antonio Mejia-Zuniga, petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA;” “Board”), which dismissed her appeal from an immigration judge’s denial of her application for asylum and withholding of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), 8 U.S.C. §§ 1158, 1231, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), 8 C.F.R. § 208.16. For the reasons that follow, the petition for review is GRANTED as to asylum and withholding of removal under the INA, DENIED as to the dismissal of withholding of removal under CAT, the Board’s order is VACATED, and the case is REMANDED to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. No. 21-3312, Zuniga-Martinez, et al. v. Garland I. BACKGROUND A. Factual Background Before arriving in the United States, Zuniga owned a variety store in Olanchito, Honduras that opened in 2012. Six months after the store’s opening, members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang (“MS-13;” “maras”) started to surveil the store and demand Zuniga pay monthly “protection money” against robbery from rival gangs. Zuniga complied, even when the demanded amount went as high as 1,000 lempiras—a large increase from the first demand of 250 lempiras. Young teenagers were often dispatched to collect the fee, a common gang tactic that exploits the Honduran judicial system’s relatively lenient treatment of youthful offenders. This pattern of extortion lasted from 2012 to 2015. At her removal hearing, Zuniga testified that on one occasion, the maras robbed, beat, and left her husband tied up when he was en route to the village, where he worked as a merchant. This violence prompted her husband to flee to the United States with their son. Moreover, in May 2014, the maras murdered Zuniga’s brother-in-law, Caesar Fernando Reyes, who owned a small business and whom the maras extorted. In August 2015, around the time that her husband left Honduras, Zuniga closed her store due to the difficulty of complying with the maras’ monthly extortion demands. Nevertheless, on two occasions, the gang members visited Zuniga’s home (which was nearby her then-shuttered business) to demand ongoing protection money. As to why the extortion demands continued after she closed the shop, Zuniga testified that the MS-13 members likely assumed that she continued operations from her home. Zuniga did not pay the maras …
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