NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUL 14 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT WENDY YAMILETH RODRIGUEZ- No. 18-72259 CASTRO; N. M. F. R., Agency Nos. A208-134-376 Petitioners, A208-134-377 v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted July 10, 2020** Seattle, Washington Before: CLIFTON, D.M. FISHER,*** and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges. Petitioners Wendy Yamileth Rodriguez-Castro and her minor daughter N.M.F.R., natives and citizens of El Salvador, petition for review of an order of the * 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 D. Michael Fisher, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting by designation. Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing their appeal from a decision of an immigration judge (IJ). The IJ denied Rodriguez-Castro’s application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), in which N.M.F.R. is a derivative applicant, and N.M.F.R.’s individual application for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT relief. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252 and grant in part and deny in part the petition. 1. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s conclusion that Rodriguez-Castro did not suffer past persecution from two written extortion threats left at her home by the Mara Salvatrucha (MS) gang. See Canales-Vargas v. Gonzales, 441 F.3d 739, 744 (9th Cir. 2006) (death threats, where the recipient was not confronted or physically harmed, do not constitute past persecution). The written threats did not create an immediate sense of violence when weeks passed between the first and second notes, and MS did not confront or further contact Rodriguez-Castro or her family, or otherwise mistreat them, before the family left El Salvador two months later. This case does not fall in the small category of cases where “repeated and especially menacing death threats” constitute past persecution. Lim v. INS, 224 F.3d 929, 936 (9th Cir. 2000); see also Duran-Rodriguez v. Barr, 918 F.3d 1025, 1028 (9th Cir. 2019). Substantial evidence also supports the BIA’s conclusion that Rodriguez- Castro failed to show a nexus between the harm she suffered and the particular 2 social group defined by familial association with her partner, Victor Flores. The written threats Rodriguez-Castro received did not reference Flores, or his political or police affiliations. See Barajas-Romero v. Lynch, 846 F.3d 351, 357 (9th Cir. 2017) (“[I]f the persecutor has no idea what the victim’s political opinion is and does not care what it is, then even if the victim does reasonably fear persecution, it would not be ‘on account of’ the victim’s political opinion.”). However, the BIA erred in failing to analyze two other protected grounds Rodriguez-Castro asserted—familial association with her parents, who reside in the United ...
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