Marroquin-Benitez v. Garland


Appellate Case: 22-9519 Document: 010110815123 Date Filed: 02/21/2023 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT February 21, 2023 _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court VERONICA DEL CARMEN MARROQUIN-BENITEZ; JULIO ERNESTO SANTAMARIA- MARROQUIN; JOHN DOE, Petitioners, No. 22-9519 v. (Petition for Review) MERRICK B. GARLAND, United States Attorney General, Respondent. _________________________________ ORDER AND JUDGMENT * _________________________________ Before HARTZ, TYMKOVICH, and MATHESON, Circuit Judges. _________________________________ Veronica Del Carmen Marroquin-Benitez (“Marroquin-Benitez”) and her sons, Julio Ernesto Santamaria-Marroquin (“Julio”) and John Doe (“A.N.M.”), 1 seek review of * After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 1 Marroquin-Benitez’s youngest son is identified in the caption as “John Doe” because he is a minor. We follow the convention in Petitioners’ brief in referring to him as A.N.M. Appellate Case: 22-9519 Document: 010110815123 Date Filed: 02/21/2023 Page: 2 a Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) decision dismissing their appeal from an Immigration Judge’s (IJ) removal order. Exercising jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, we deny the petition. BACKGROUND Marroquin-Benitez and her sons are natives and citizens of El Salvador. They allege that El Salvadoran gang members threatened Julio, stating that the gang would kill him and his family if he did not join the gang. “[A]fter they threatened [him], a car came by and [the gang members] thought it was a police patrol car and so they took off running.” Id. at 132. Julio, who was fifteen at the time, recounted the incident to his mother. Marroquin-Benitez was frightened and remained inside the house with her sons for a week or more. Several years earlier, gangs had murdered a teenage nephew for refusing to join a gang and another nephew for cooperating with police after joining the gang, and she “didn’t want the same thing to happen to [her] children or to [herself].” Id. at 107. So, Marroquin-Benitez and her sons fled El Salvador. On November 30, 2015, they entered the United States without inspection. The Department of Homeland Security took them into custody and charged them as noncitizens present in this country without admission or parole. They conceded 2 Appellate Case: 22-9519 Document: 010110815123 Date Filed: 02/21/2023 Page: 3 removability and sought asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention against Torture (CAT). 2 Represented by counsel, they appeared before an IJ for an asylum hearing. Marroquin-Benitez testified that she “personally hadn’t had any problems with the gang before this,” id., and that the gang’s threat included her and A.N.M. to make it …

Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals