NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 25 2021 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MARILU MEJIA ROMERO, No. 19-70607 Petitioner, Agency No. A205-243-160 v. MEMORANDUM* ROBERT M. WILKINSON, Acting Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted February 9, 2021** San Francisco, California Before: HURWITZ and BRESS, Circuit Judges, and CORKER,*** District Judge. Marilu Mejia-Romero (“Romero”), a citizen of Mexico, lived in the United States for twelve years before the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) initiated removal proceedings against her. DHS served Romero with a Notice to * 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 Clifton L. Corker, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Tennessee, sitting by designation. Appear (“NTA”), asserting that she was subject to removal. This NTA did not state the specific date and time of the hearing, only that it would be “on a date to be set at a time to be set.” Romero received a second notice the next day that included the date and time. Romero conceded removability but filed an application for withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). She claimed she feared persecution because of her relation to her stepfather, who had been kidnapped in Mexico and extorted for money. The Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denied Romero’s application, finding no nexus between Romero’s fear of harm and her relationship with her stepfather. Romero moved for termination of her removal proceedings, relying on the decision in Pereira v. Sessions to claim that the defective NTA deprived the IJ of jurisdiction. 138 S. Ct. 2105, 2110 (2018). The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) dismissed Romero’s appeal from the IJ’s decision and denied her motion to terminate. Romero now petitions for review of the BIA’s decisions. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252 and deny the petition for review. 1. Although the initial NTA did not include the hearing date and time, a defective NTA can be cured by subsequent notice containing the required information. Aguilar Fermin v. Barr, 958 F.3d 887, 889 (9th Cir. 2020). Here, the defective NTA was cured the next day when Romero received a second notice that included a hearing date and time. 2 2. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s denial of Romero’s application for withholding of removal. The BIA affirmed the IJ’s denial of withholding of removal because it found that Romero had failed to establish a nexus between her proposed social group and any feared future persecution. Romero’s stepfather had been kidnapped once in 2016, but the kidnappers never contacted him again nor did they ever threaten or mention Romero. Later, a different group telephoned her stepfather, extorting him and falsely claiming to have kidnapped Romero and ...
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