NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS NOV 13 2019 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT ANDY RODRIGUEZ, No. 18-72368 Petitioner, Agency No. 096-498-556 v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted November 5, 2019 Pasadena, California Before: FARRIS, MCKEOWN, and PARKER, ** Circuit Judges. Andy Rodriguez petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming the decision of an Immigration Judge * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Barrington D. Parker, Jr., United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, sitting by designation. 1 (“IJ”) denying his claim for withholding of removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3) and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252. Rodriguez is a citizen of Guatemala who was brought to this country when he was three years old. He seeks withholding of removal and protection under the CAT on two grounds. First, he contends that he is a member of a social group consisting of “Guatemalans with tattoos that will identify them as having had a gang affiliation.” Second, he contends that if he is removed, he will belong to a group consisting of “Guatemalans who have returned to the country from the United States” and that as a member of these groups, he will face persecution and torture in Guatemala. The BIA denied Petitioner’s request for withholding on the ground that he had failed to establish that he was a member of a cognizable social group. Instead, the IJ and the BIA determined that the groups posited by Rodriguez were too amorphous and that the fears he referred to stemmed from the generalized criminality and violence in Guatemala, considerations that did not supply a valid basis for withholding of removal. See Zentino v. Holder, 622 F.3d 1007, 1016 (9th Cir. 2010). 2 Our case law is clear that Petitioner’s purported groups are not cognizable for purposes of the INA. We do not accept the contention that a “group” said to consist of “Guatemalans with tattoos that will identify them as having had a gang affiliation” and mark them for potential persecution meets the definition of a social group. Petitioner’s proposed group is overbroad, lacking the necessary traits of particularity and social distinction. See Arteaga v. Mukasey, 511 F.3d 940, 945 (9th Cir. 2007) (explaining that a “tattooed gang member” is not a member of a particular social group). In addition, we have repeatedly rejected groups that center on returnees to a country as a categorization that lacks particularity. Delgado-Ortiz v. Holder, 600 F.3d 1148, 1151-52 (9th Cir. 2010); see also Ramirez-Munoz v. Lynch, 816 F.3d 1226, 1229 (9th Cir. 2016) (a proposed social group of returning Mexicans was not cognizable because it could ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals