NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 2 2023 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT LUIS AMAYA-PINEDA, No. 21-609 Agency No. Petitioner, A208-169-505 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted April 13, 2023 San Francisco, California Before: S.R. THOMAS and KOH, Circuit Judges, and RAKOFF, District Judge.** Luis Amaya-Pineda petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming the Immigration Judge (“IJ”)’s denials of asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a). We review * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Jed S. Rakoff, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation. legal questions de novo and the BIA’s factual determinations for substantial evidence. Bhattarai v. Lynch, 835 F.3d 1037, 1042 (9th Cir. 2016). We deny the petition in part and grant and remand in part for proceedings consistent with this disposition. 1. With respect to Amaya-Pineda’s asylum and withholding claims, the BIA assumed without deciding that Amaya-Pineda’s family was a cognizable particular social group. However, the BIA concluded that Amaya-Pineda failed to establish that his membership in his family constituted either “one central reason for” his claimed persecution, as required for asylum, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i), or “a reason” for his claimed persecution, as required for withholding of removal, Barajas-Romero v. Lynch, 846 F.3d 351, 359–60 (9th Cir. 2017). Instead, the BIA sustained the IJ’s finding that the reason Amaya- Pineda was extorted and threatened with violence by a criminal gang was simply because “the gang members . . . wanted money.” Ample evidence supports the agency’s factual finding that the putative persecutors were motivated by money rather than animus. However, this does not end the inquiry, because the facts as recounted by the BIA plainly demonstrate that Amaya-Pineda’s membership in his family was “at least one central reason” that the 18th Street gang targeted him, as opposed to some other individual. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i). Specifically, the BIA found that “[t]he gang members also explicitly told [Amaya-Pineda] they were extorting him because they knew he had family members in the United States who could pay.” Thus, “the attackers’ 2 words themselves evidence that they were motivated, at least in part, by [Amaya- Pineda’s] [family] status . . . and not solely by criminal opportunism.” Ali v. Ashcroft, 394 F.3d 780, 786 (9th Cir. 2005). Although this evidence plainly supports the inference that Amaya-Pineda’s membership in his family was “at least one central reason” he was targeted, the BIA instead treated it as undermining the asserted nexus between his membership in his family and his persecution claim. That was error. To the extent Amaya- Pineda was targeted—as the BIA found he was—because gang members …
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