Case: 18-60393 Document: 00515223736 Page: 1 Date Filed: 12/04/2019 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit FILED December 4, 2019 No. 18-60393 Lyle W. Cayce Clerk ROSA ALBA MARTINEZ-LOPEZ; JOSAFAT NAHUM SIERRA-MARTINEZ, Petitioners v. WILLIAM P. BARR, U. S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Before JOLLY, SMITH, and COSTA, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Rosa Alba Martinez-Lopez, on behalf of herself and her minor son Josafat Nahum Sierra-Martinez, seeks review of a Board of Immigration Appeals decision affirming the denial of their requests for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). We deny the petition. I. Martinez-Lopez and her son are from Honduras. They entered the United States without documentation in October 2015. Each received a notice to appear before an immigration judge (IJ), but the notices stated that the date and time of the appearance were “To Be Determined.” A later notice provided Case: 18-60393 Document: 00515223736 Page: 2 Date Filed: 12/04/2019 No. 18-60393 a date and a time for a hearing in Houston. Martinez-Lopez and her son appeared at the prescribed time and place. At a subsequent hearing before the IJ, Martinez-Lopez admitted through counsel that she and her son were inadmissible aliens. She applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the CAT. In support of her application, Martinez-Lopez related the following instances of violence and harassment against her and her family in Honduras. Her brother was murdered after dropping off his son at school. The police did not investigate his murder, even though Martinez-Lopez’s family filed a police report. A month later, several of Martinez-Lopez’s relatives were killed too. This time, police arrested a gang member. Martinez-Lopez also noted that her father was killed over twenty years ago, and the police never investigated his murder. Martinez-Lopez testified that the harassment of her family continued after her brother’s murder. For example, men in a truck followed Martinez- Lopez, her mother, and her sisters. Even after Martinez-Lopez relocated to the United States, men followed her mother and sisters on at least one other occasion. They have not, however, encountered any problems in over a year. They now live in another part of Honduras. Finally, Martinez-Lopez said that gang members harassed her at the cell phone store where she worked in Honduras. She testified that they came to the store five days a week and demanded that she and other employees hand over SIM cards. The gang members threatened to kill the store employees and their families if they did not cooperate. Again, the police took no action. As a result of these events, Martinez-Lopez fears returning to Honduras because she believes the “people who killed [her] brother and the gang members who made [her] program the sim cards” would find and kill her. 2 Case: 18-60393 Document: 00515223736 Page: 3 Date Filed: 12/04/2019 No. 18-60393 The IJ denied Martinez-Lopez’s application. Although she ...
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