United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 17-2095 IRMA YOLANDA AGUILAR-DE GUILLEN, et al., Petitioners, v. JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS III, Attorney General of the United States, Respondent. PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS Before Torruella, Lipez, and Thompson Circuit Judges. Carlos E. Estrada, Ashley M. Edens, and Estrada Law Office on brief for petitioner. Jane T. Schaffner, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Chad A. Readler, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, and Paul Fiorino, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, on brief for respondent. August 27, 2018 THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. Petitioner,1 Irma Yolanda Aguilar-De Guillen, seeks judicial review of a Board of Immigration Appeal ("BIA") opinion affirming an Immigration Judge's ("IJ") decision denying her asylum relief, withholding of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA"), and protection pursuant to the Convention Against Torture Act ("CAT") and ordering her removed. She claims the BIA erred in affirming the IJ's finding that: (1) she did not suffer past persecution on account of a protected ground; (2) she did not have a well-founded fear of future persecution; and (3) she was not entitled to protection under CAT.2 Finding no merit to her arguments, we affirm. A. BACKGROUND 1. Life in El Salvador3 Petitioner was born in El Salvador in 1985. In 2006, she married Miguel Ángel and the pair had two children (who, as minors, are co-petitioners in this case). In El Salvador, she owned and operated a fruit and vegetable store with her husband. On several occasions, while her husband was off working as a taxi driver (his second job), gang members threatened to kill them 1 Aguilar-De Guillen's two minor children are co-petitioners in this case, and we refer to the three collectively as "Petitioner." 2 Petitioner has not appealed the denial of her withholding of removal claim pursuant to the INA. 3 These facts are elicited from Petitioner's hearing testimony, which the IJ found credible. - 2 - unless their business paid monthly "rent" to the respective gang. The gang threatened to throw a grenade into her home if she refused to pay. The gang members also informed Petitioner that they knew where her children went to school and she interpreted this as an additional threat. While four of the death threats were made via hand-written notes between December 2012 and January 2013, she also received several phone calls during that time with similar threats. She reported these incidents to her husband, who in turn reported them to the police. The police informed the two that they would "look into it" and advised Petitioner to turn off her telephone to avoid future threating calls. Once she reached out to a private detective about these threats and he agreed to be on the lookout at the store, the gang ceased making any threats. While no one on Petitioner's side of the family had suffered any gang violence, both her husband's nephew and ...
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