Case: 18-11101 Date Filed: 02/26/2019 Page: 1 of 10 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 18-11101 Non-Argument Calendar ________________________ Agency No. A200-045-217 SERGIO EDUARDO RODRIGUES, Petitioner, versus U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. ________________________ Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals ________________________ (February 26, 2019) Before MARCUS, ROSENBAUM, and GRANT, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Case: 18-11101 Date Filed: 02/26/2019 Page: 2 of 10 Sergio Eduardo Rodrigues seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) order dismissing his appeal from the denial of his application for withholding of removal and relief under the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (“CAT”). Upon review of the record and the parties’ briefs, we dismiss the petition in part and deny it in part. I. Rodrigues, a native and citizen of Brazil, entered the United States on December 30, 2004 on a nonimmigrant tourist visa, which expired in August 2005. Rodrigues overstayed his visa and in 2011, he was served with a notice to appear charging that he was removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(l)(B) for remaining longer than permitted. Rodrigues conceded removability as charged and applied for withholding of removal and CAT relief. According to Rodrigues’s application and testimony before the immigration judge (“IJ”), Rodrigues was born and lived in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He and his brother owned a clothing company there. The company did very well for many years, but eventually began to fail. Rodrigues borrowed extensively from banks and then from loan sharks in an effort to keep the family business afloat. Two of the loan sharks, Alfredo Santos and Salvador, whose last name Rodrigues could 2 Case: 18-11101 Date Filed: 02/26/2019 Page: 3 of 10 not recall, became hostile and threatened Rodrigues when he was unable to repay the money that he borrowed from them. Rodrigues described three incidents that formed the basis for his application for withholding of removal: First, in 2003, Santos came to Rodrigues’s house while armed and threatened to kill him if he did not repay the money he owed. Rodrigues testified that he did not call the police after this incident because Santos lived near his mother and Rodrigues feared for his family. Second, in 2004, Salvador sent two men to Rodrigues’s store to confiscate merchandise in partial payment of Rodrigues’s debt. The men threatened to kill him and his family if Rodrigues told anyone about the incident. Third, and last, several years after Rodrigues had moved to the United States, Santos told Rodrigues’s mother and brother that if Rodrigues returned to Brazil he “would be in great trouble.” Santos still lives near Rodrigues’s mother and knows many of Rodrigues’s family members; Rodrigues believed that Santos would soon find out if he returned to Sao Paulo. Rodrigues testified that he did not want to relocate to a different part of Brazil because the situation there is unstable and it would be difficult for him ...
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