NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUN 27 2023 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT HELADIO BAUTISTA SANTIAGO, No. 22-86 Agency No. Petitioner, A075-879-287 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted June 12, 2023 ** Portland, Oregon Before: RAWLINSON and SUNG, Circuit Judges, and RAKOFF, District Judge.*** Heladio Bautista Santiago (Petitioner), a native and citizen of Mexico, seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) decision affirming the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his applications for asylum, * 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). *** The Honorable Jed S. Rakoff, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation. withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review the BIA’s factual findings for substantial evidence, and its decisions on questions of law and mixed questions of law and fact de novo. Conde Quevedo v. Barr, 947 F.3d 1238, 1241 (9th Cir. 2020). For the following reasons, we deny the petition. 1. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s conclusion that Petitioner’s indigenous race was not “one central reason” for any feared persecution. A “central reason” is a “reason of primary importance to the persecutors,” without which they would not have acted. Parussimova v. Mukasey, 555 F.3d 734, 741 (9th Cir. 2009). To be a central reason, “the protected ground . . . cannot be incidental, tangential, superficial, or subordinate to another reason for harm.” Id. (quoting In re J–B–N & S–M, 24 I. & N. Dec. 208, 214 (2007)); see also Kaur v. Garland, 2 F.4th 823, 835 (9th Cir. 2021). Petitioner testified that the dominant cartel in his hometown extorts both indigenous and non-indigenous people, namely anyone with a business, and attacks those who fail to pay. That testimony supports the finding that, in Petitioner’s case, indigenous race is not a motive that “standing alone, would have led the persecutor to harm the applicant.” Parussimova, 555 F.3d at 741. The record does not compel the contrary conclusion that Petitioner’s race would be more than a “subordinate” reason for potential persecution. Id. 2. The BIA correctly determined that Petitioner’s proposed particularized social group of “indigenous men who are small business owners and recent 2 arrivals from the United States” is not cognizable because it lacks immutability, due in part to the changeable nature of one’s occupation. See Conde Quevedo, 947 F.3d at 1242. We have held that occupation-based social groups like Petitioner’s are too broad to qualify as a particularized social group because “[t]here is neither a voluntary relationship nor an innate characteristic to bond its members.” Ochoa v. Gonzales, 406 F.3d 1166, 1171 (9th Cir. 2005) …
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