NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUL 14 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT U.S. COURT OF APPEALS RICARDO ALCIDES VASQUEZ-CRUZ, No. 19-71238 Petitioner, Agency No. A095-142-120 v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted May 14, 2020** San Francisco, California Before: FRIEDLAND and BENNETT, Circuit Judges, and RAKOFF,*** District Judge. Ricardo Alcides Vasquez-Cruz (“Vasquez”), a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming the decision of an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denying Vasquez’s * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable Jed S. Rakoff, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation. applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. See Fermin v. Barr, 958 F.3d 887, 891, 895 & n.4 (9th Cir. 2020). We grant the petition for review in part and deny it in part. 1. The BIA did not err in denying Vasquez’s asylum application on the basis that it was untimely filed. A petitioner who does not apply for asylum within one year of his or her arrival in the United States may be considered for asylum only if he or she demonstrates “either the existence of changed circumstances [that] materially affect [his or her] eligibility for asylum or extraordinary circumstances relating to the delay in filing an application within the period.” 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(B), (D). Vasquez arrived in the United States in June 1999 but did not apply for asylum until 2018. He argues that both changed and extraordinary circumstances excuse his untimeliness. First, he contends that his half-brother’s flight from El Salvador in 2000 in response to gang threats and worsening gang violence in El Salvador generally constituted changed circumstances that banished “any hope” that he could safely return to El Salvador. But Vasquez already had a pronounced fear of the gang by the time he came to the United States, so these developments did not “materially affect” the strength of Vasquez’s asylum claim. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(D); see also Vahora v. Holder, 641 F.3d 1038, 1047 (9th Cir. 2011) (excusing the untimeliness of a petitioner’s asylum application where changed 2 circumstances made “his claim . . . substantially stronger”). Second, Vasquez argues that his obtaining Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) in July 2001 was an extraordinary circumstance justifying his delay in applying for asylum. Vasquez, however, did not become eligible for TPS until March 2001, more than eight months after the one-year deadline by which he had to file his asylum application. TPS thus did not “directly relate[] to [his] failure to file the application within ...
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