NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 18a0525n.06 No. 17-4269 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Oct 22, 2018 SARA TOMAS RIOS-ZAMORA, ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk ) Petitioner, ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW ) FROM THE UNITED STATES v. ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION ) APPEALS JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS, III, Attorney General, ) ) OPINION Respondent. ) ) BEFORE: MERRITT, DAUGHTREY, and STRANCH, Circuit Judges. JANE B. STRANCH, Circuit Judge. Sara Rios-Zamora and her daughter left Honduras in 2014 after being robbed at gunpoint. The immigration judge denied her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture; the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed. Though we have no doubt the robbery was traumatic for both Rios-Zamora and her daughter, we are bound by precedent to conclude that the robbery did not amount to persecution on account of a protected characteristic and so DENY the petition for review. I. BACKGROUND Before she left Honduras, Rios-Zamora managed a small convenience store with her oldest son. The store, which was located in the two-room house where the family lived, stocked a variety of items, such as propane tanks, water bottles, and food. One morning, a little after 5:30 a.m., four men and one woman entered the store. The intruders, whom Rios-Zamora believed to be gang No. 17-4269, Rios-Zamora v. Sessions members, stopped Rios-Zamora at the door and then entered the rooms where the children were sleeping. They put guns to the children’s heads and tied up the family members. Watching the robbers move through the house, Rios-Zamora feared for her life and the lives of her children. The robbers took all the cash they could find, which totaled approximately $2,0001 and represented the sale proceeds for the day, as well as other items such as cell phones. As the robbers were leaving, they threatened to return and kill the family if they reported the incident to the police. Rios-Zamora never saw them again. Rios-Zamora was terrified and unwilling to remain in that house. The very same day, she and her daughter moved to her mother’s home. But there, too, she felt unsafe, fearing the gangs that she testified could be found on “every corner” of that neighborhood. So Rios-Zamora and her daughter left Honduras to seek safety in the United States. But as soon as they crossed the southern border, they were put in removal proceedings. Rios-Zamora applied for asylum and withholding of removal under both the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and the Convention Against Torture, listing her daughter as a derivative beneficiary on each application. The immigration judge denied her applications and ordered that Rios-Zamora and her daughter be removed. The BIA affirmed, holding that (1) Rios-Zamora did not “suffer[] harm amounting to past persecution,” (2) her proposed social groups did not have “the requisite distinction within Honduran society to qualify” as a basis for asylum under the INA, (3) she did not show that the individuals who committed the robbery “were motivated ...
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