PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 19-2115 ANITA ELIZABETH ARGUETA DIAZ DE GOMEZ, Petitioner, v. ROBERT M. WILKINSON, Acting Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: October 29, 2020 Decided: February 8, 2021 Before MOTZ, KEENAN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges. Petition for review granted by published opinion. Judge Keenan wrote the opinion, in which Judge Motz and Judge Floyd joined. ARGUED: Pamela P. Keenan, KIRSCHBAUM, NANNEY, KEENAN & GRIFFIN, P.A., Raleigh, North Carolina, for Petitioner. John Frederick Stanton, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Jessica E. Burns, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. BARBARA MILANO KEENAN, Circuit Judge: Anita Elizabeth Argueta Diaz de Gomez petitions for review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Board) dismissing her appeal of the denial of her requests for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Diaz de Gomez claims that she received repeated death threats from a gang in Guatemala after she and her family witnessed a mass killing by gang members and refused to acquiesce to the gang’s extortion and other demands. The immigration judge (IJ) found that Diaz de Gomez was credible and had corroborated her claims. The IJ and Board nevertheless concluded that Diaz de Gomez had not established that any persecution she suffered was on account of her familial ties or another protected ground. The Board also held that Diaz de Gomez had not shown that the Guatemalan government was unable or unwilling to protect her from this harm. After rejecting Diaz de Gomez’s additional arguments, the Board dismissed Diaz de Gomez’s appeal. Upon our review, we reject the Board’s “excessively narrow” view of the nexus requirement, and conclude that Diaz de Gomez established that her familial ties were one central reason for her persecution. Hernandez-Avalos v. Lynch, 784 F.3d 944, 949 (4th Cir. 2015). We also hold that the record conclusively establishes that the Guatemalan government was unable or unwilling to control Diaz de Gomez’s persecutors. We therefore grant the petition for review and remand for the Board to reconsider Diaz de Gomez’s claims in light of our holdings. 2 I. Diaz de Gomez, a native and citizen of Guatemala, has a university degree and worked as a primary schoolteacher in Guatemala for about eight years before fleeing the country. 1 She entered the United States in 2015 and, shortly thereafter, filed an application for asylum as well as requests for withholding of removal and protection under the CAT. Diaz de Gomez’s claims for relief are based on a series of death threats made by gang members against her beginning in 2008. In November of that year, Diaz de Gomez, her husband, and other family members witnessed a mass killing conducted by the Zetas, a Mexican gang operating in Guatemala. When the family ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals