FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION APR 13 2021 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT YAJAIRA GUADALUPE MELENDEZ No. 18-71507 MORALES, Agency No. A213-087-239 Petitioner, v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. YAJAIRA MARICEL MELENDEZ No. 18-71512 MORALES, Agency No. A213-087-240 Petitioner, v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. Submitted April 9, 2021** Pasadena, California Before: W. FLETCHER, WATFORD, and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges. Yajaira Guadalupe Melendez Morales (“Guadalupe”) and Yajaira Maricel Melendez Morales (“Maricel”) petition for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) holding that they are ineligible for asylum, withholding, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We grant the petition and remand. Petitioners are twenty-three-year-old twin sisters from El Salvador. From January to May 2017, they encountered persistent physical and sexual harassment from members of Mara 18 (the 18th Street Gang), which controlled the area where they attended school. Gang members would follow them home, make rude sexual comments, and touch them. They told Maricel that they would have sex from behind and she would ask for it again. One tried to touch Guadalupe all over her body. Another sexually assaulted Maricel at gunpoint on her way home from school, forcing his hand in her underwear. A family friend overheard these gang members saying that they were tired of the petitioners’ resistance and that “if ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). 2 [they] weren’t going to be theirs [then] [they] would not be anybody’s.” That night, three men knocked loudly on their door and said it was time “to find out what it was like to be with a real man.” Petitioners did not go to the police because the gangs would have found out and “really hurt” them. The IJ found that the petitioners were credible and did not require corroboration. However, the IJ denied their asylum, withholding, and CAT claims. The IJ found that their proposed social groups—(1) young Salvadoran women living in El Salvador, and (2) young Salvadoran women viewed as property and unwilling to enter into a forced sexual and domestic relationship—were insufficiently socially distinct to be cognizable, and even if they were, there was no nexus between those groups and the harm petitioners suffered or feared. The IJ also denied the withholding and CAT claims. The BIA affirmed on different grounds. It assumed that these particular social groups were cognizable, but held that petitioners did not meet their burden of proof as to fear of persecution. The BIA highlighted that (1) petitioners’ grandmother did not corroborate their story, (2) their expert on conditions in El Salvador had not met them personally, and (3) they had aged out of danger because they …
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