NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION File Name: 19a0153n.06 Case No. 18-3683 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Mar 28, 2019 ALEXI LEIVA-AVILEZ, ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk ) Petitioner, ) ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW v. ) FROM THE UNITED STATES ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, ) APPEALS ) Respondent. ) BEFORE: MOORE, SUTTON, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges. SUTTON, Circuit Judge. Alexi Leiva-Avilez challenges the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision denying his applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. We deny the petition for review. A citizen of Honduras, Leiva-Avilez illegally entered the United States in 2016. The Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against him. Leiva-Avilez conceded his removability but applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. Before coming to the United States, Leiva-Avilez lived in Choluteca, located in southern Honduras. Three times between October 2015 and early 2016, members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, also known as MS-13, confronted Leiva-Avilez at bus stops in Choluteca. The gang members pressured Leiva-Avilez to join MS-13 and threatened to make life difficult for him and Case No. 18-3683, Leiva-Avilez v. Barr his family if he refused. He never reported the gang’s threats to the police, he claimed, because the police are corrupt and work with MS-13. Leiva-Avilez refused to join the organization, but, fearing retaliation, including that the gang would kill him if he did not acquiesce, he eventually fled to the United States. In his applications, Leiva-Avilez argued that the MS-13 members targeted him because he opposed the gang. He later testified that he was part of a church group of young people who met each Sunday to encourage others not to join the local gangs. The immigration judge denied Leiva-Avilez’s applications, finding that he lacked credibility and, apart from that, had not shown that MS-13 persecuted him because of his political opinion or his participation in the church group or that the government would acquiesce in his torture. The Board of Immigration Appeals agreed, though it did not address the credibility point, and rejected his claims. We review the Board’s decision and consider the immigration judge’s reasoning to the extent the Board adopted it. Al-Saka v. Sessions, 904 F.3d 427, 430 (6th Cir. 2018). The Attorney General may grant asylum to a “refugee,” 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1), defined as an alien unwilling to return home “because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion,” id. § 1101(a)(42)(A). To establish eligibility in this case, Leiva-Avilez thus needed to show that his political opinion or his involvement in the church group motivated the gang members to persecute him. INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481, 483 (1992); Pascual v. Mukasey, 514 F.3d 483, 486–87 (6th Cir. 2007). We may reverse the Board’s asylum determination only if “no reasonable factfinder could fail to find the requisite ...
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