Case: 17-14226 Date Filed: 07/31/2018 Page: 1 of 12 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 17-14226 Non-Argument Calendar ________________________ Agency No. A206-734-882 DINA R. GOMEZ DE SANDOVAL, YARI RAQUEL SANDOVAL-GOMEZ, ANDREA YAMILETH SANDOVAL-GOMEZ, Petitioners, versus U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. ________________________ Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals ________________________ (July 31, 2018) Before TJOFLAT, ROSENBAUM, and FAY, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Case: 17-14226 Date Filed: 07/31/2018 Page: 2 of 12 Dina Raquel Gomez De Sandoval and her children seek review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’s (“BIA”) final order affirming the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) denial of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (“CAT”). The BIA concluded that Gomez de Sandoval failed to meet her burden of proof for asylum and withholding of removal because she failed to establish her membership in a particular social group, and even if she did not, she failed to establish a nexus between any persecution she may have faced and any of the enumerated grounds in the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”). The BIA also found that she was not eligible for CAT relief because she would not be tortured by or with the acquiescence of Salvadoran government officials. After careful review, we deny the petition. I. Gomez de Sandoval and her daughters, Yari Raquel Sandoval-Gomez and Andrea Yamileth Sandoval-Gomez, are natives and citizens of El Salvador who entered the United States in May 2014. Soon after, the government initiated removal proceedings, charging her as removable for being present in the United States without being admitted or paroled. Gomez de Sandoval conceded 2 Case: 17-14226 Date Filed: 07/31/2018 Page: 3 of 12 removability and then applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under CAT. Gomez de Sandoval testified at a hearing before an IJ that she came to the United States with her daughters to escape extortion demands and threats by the Mara-18 gang, which operates throughout El Salvador. She had been a restaurant owner in El Salvador for nearly 20 years. In 2011, in the city of Santa Ana, members of the Mara-18 gang demanded $150 per month in “rent.” Gomez de Sandoval refused to pay and instead moved her restaurant to another city, Cara Sucia. After she opened the restaurant in Cara Sucia, members of the Mara-18 gang on two separate occasions, two weeks apart, demanded $200 per month in “rent.” The gang members threatened her and her daughters with retaliation— stating that they “knew where her daughters studied, where they walked”—if she did not pay. She and her daughters left for the United States soon thereafter. She testified that she refused to pay extortion money due to her Christian principles. The IJ issued an oral decision finding her ineligible for relief from removal. In a sympathetic ruling, the IJ found that Gomez de Sandoval was a “very hard ...
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