NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ___________ No. 17-1946 ___________ ALDA IRIS SANTOS GUTIERREZ; M.M.S-G., Petitioners v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent ____________________________________ On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Agency Nos. A206-712-121, A206-712-122) Immigration Judge: Honorable Steven A. Morley ____________________________________ Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) on November 5, 2018 Before: HARDIMAN, KRAUSE, and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges (Opinion filed: November 7, 2018) ___________ OPINION* ___________ * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. KRAUSE, Circuit Judge. Petitioner Aldo Iris Santos Gutierrez and her daughter, M.M.S-G., appeal the Board of Immigration of Appeals’ decision affirming the Immigration Judge’s denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). As substantial evidence supports the BIA’s decision, we will deny the petition for review. I. Background Santos, a victim of multiple threats and robberies, lost two brothers to gang violence in Honduras: Jose Levis was murdered in 2004 for refusing to join a gang, while Roberto Carlos was killed seven years later during an apparent robbery.1 A gang member used Roberto Carlos’s phone to call Santos, threatening to kill her. Thereafter, a gang member named Christian demanded to have dinner with Santos, but Santos refused. Gang members also threw a letter over the wall surrounding Santos’s house, threatening, “You look like your brother, Jose Levis, and we are going to kill you like him.” Administrative Record (A.R.) 393. Santos understood this letter to mean that the gang would murder her if she, like Jose Levis, refused to join the gang. After receiving the letter, Santos spotted a man manipulating a pistol hidden beneath his shirt as he walked along the street. 1 In his oral decision, the IJ found Santos “largely credible,” but then remarked that Santos’s credibility was “ultimately . . . somewhat mixed.” A.R. 44. Because neither the IJ nor the BIA relied on the “somewhat mixed” credibility finding to deny her application, we accept Santos’s testimony as true and do not consider the propriety of the IJ’s credibility determination. See Li v. Attorney Gen., 400 F.3d 157, 163-64 (3d Cir. 2 Santos then left Honduras with her daughter M.M.S-G. for the United States, where they were placed in removal proceedings. Santos lodged a timely asylum application, contending she suffered persecution because of her membership in two particular social groups—specifically, her family and single adult women with family members who have been targeted and killed by Honduran gangs. She also sought withholding of removal and CAT relief. The IJ concluded that Santos had not shown that the gang members had persecuted her as a result of her family ties or that Honduran society viewed single adult women with family members who had been targeted and killed by Honduran gangs as a socially distinct group. The BIA adopted the IJ’s reasoning on appeal, and Santos filed a timely petition for review. ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals