Carlos Escobar Gomez v. Merrick Garland


UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 20-1654 CARLOS ALEXANDER ESCOBAR GOMEZ, Petitioner, v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: September 22, 2021 Decided: December 10, 2021 Before WILKINSON, WYNN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges. Petition for review granted and remanded for further proceedings by unpublished opinion. Judge Floyd wrote the opinion in which Judge Wynn joined. Judge Wynn wrote a separate concurring opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote a dissenting opinion. ARGUED: Nathan Randal Bogart, BOGART, SMALL + NAYLOR, Fayetteville, Arkansas, for Petitioner. Paul Fiorino, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Jeffrey C. Bossert, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Carl H. McIntyre, Jr., Assistant Director, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. FLOYD, Circuit Judge: Carlos Escobar Gomez seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) dismissal of his application for asylum. The BIA determined that Escobar Gomez was ineligible for asylum because he failed to establish membership in a particular social group defined with sufficient particularity. Because this ruling is not supported by a reasoned explanation, we grant the petition for review and remand to the BIA for further proceedings. I. Escobar Gomez is a thirty-year-old native and citizen of El Salvador. He departed El Salvador on November 23, 2013, and arrived in the United States on January 19, 2014, at or near Hidalgo, Texas, entering without inspection. Escobar Gomez was placed into removal proceedings pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1229a following service of a Notice to Appear (NTA) on February 12, 2014. Escobar Gomez conceded his removability, but sought asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), claiming that he would be unsafe in El Salvador because he had witnessed a murder and subsequently was threatened by gang members. Per Escobar Gomez’s testimony, on October 24, 2013, while returning home from a soccer practice in his hometown in El Salvador, Escobar Gomez and two of his friends witnessed two members of an unspecified gang shoot and kill a known acquaintance. On November 13, 2013, one of the gang members involved in the shooting, Costello, approached Escobar Gomez and warned him that if he went to the authorities or told anyone 2 else what he had seen, he would meet the same fate as the murder victim. Costello left Escobar Gomez with his cell phone number so Escobar Gomez could inform him if the police asked any questions, warning him they had further things to discuss. Neither Escobar Gomez nor his two friends reported either witnessing the murder or the subsequent threat to legal authorities. He believed that the police would be unable to protect him, fearing that even if Costello were arrested, other members of the gang would seek retribution by following through on Costello’s threat. Ten days after receiving the threat against his life, on …

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