PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 18-1915 MARIA DEL CARMEN AMAYA-DE SICARAN, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Submitted: September 11, 2020 Decided: October 30, 2020 Before WILKINSON, NIEMEYER, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges. Petition dismissed in part and denied in part by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Niemeyer and Judge Diaz joined. Ronald D. Richey, LAW OFFICE OF RONALD D. RICHEY, Rockville, Maryland, for Petitioner. Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Carl H. McIntyre, Assistant Director, Benjamin J. Zeitlin, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. WILKINSON, Circuit Judge: Maria Del Carmen Amaya-De Sicaran (Sicaran), a native and citizen of El Salvador, applied for asylum, statutory withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). An immigration judge (IJ) and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA or Board) denied her application, and she now petitions for review. For the reasons that follow, we dismiss the petition in part for want of jurisdiction and we deny the petition on the remaining grounds. I. Sicaran entered the United States unlawfully in August 2013. The Department of Homeland Security subsequently charged her as removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) for not possessing valid entry documents at the time she sought admission to the United States. Sicaran conceded through counsel that she did not possess valid entry documents and was therefore eligible for removal. To avoid removal, Sicaran applied for asylum, 8 U.S.C. § 1158, statutory withholding of removal, 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3), and withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture, 8 C.F.R. §§ 1208.16, 1208.18. Sicaran claimed asylum and withholding of removal on the grounds that she suffered persecution as a member of a “particular social group.” 8 U.S.C. §§ 1231(b)(3)(A), 1158(b)(1)(A) (referencing § 1101(a)(42)(A)). Before the IJ and BIA, she defined her proposed group as “married El Salvadoran women in a controlling and abusive 2 domestic relationship.” A.R. 3, 154 1; see 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). More specifically, Sicaran feared her husband, German Ernesto Sigaran Luna (Luna), would harm her if she were removed to El Salvador. Her application and testimony before the Immigration Judge detailed abuse she suffered at the hands of Luna, who is a soldier in the Salvadoran Army and with whom she has had four children. According to the record, Sicaran and Luna’s relationship began in 1996, and the two married in 2000. Her husband began abusing her— including beating and raping her—around 1998. These attacks sometimes occurred in front of their children. As the IJ noted, the record is unclear as to whether Sicaran and Luna ever divorced, but at a minimum, the two stopped living together in 2009 after entering into a custody agreement. Before they separated, Luna took one of their daughters from Sicaran. The police subsequently returned the girl to Sicaran ...
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