FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT DORIS AMANDA RODRIGUEZ- No. 19-72024 ZUNIGA; NELSON GABRIEL TOBAR-RODRIGUEZ, Agency Nos. Petitioners, A209-217-710 A209-217-711 v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney OPINION General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted October 20, 2022 San Francisco, California Filed June 7, 2023 Before: Ronald Lee Gilman,* Consuelo M. Callahan, and Lawrence VanDyke, Circuit Judges. Opinion by Judge VanDyke; Dissent by Judge Gilman * The Honorable Ronald Lee Gilman, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation. 2 RODRIGUEZ-ZUNIGA V. GARLAND SUMMARY** Immigration The panel denied Doris Amanda Rodriguez-Zuniga’s and her son Nelson Gabriel Tobar-Rodriguez’s petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ dismissal of their appeal of an immigration judge’s denial of asylum and related relief. Rodriguez-Zuniga testified that she was afraid to return to Guatemala because a woman had attempted to rob her after she withdrew money from a bank. The woman told Rodriguez-Zuniga that she targeted her because Rodriguez- Zuniga had family in the United States and a lot of money. The woman also threatened that Rodriguez- Zuniga’s son would “pay for it” due to Rodriguez-Zuniga’s refusal to give her the money. Rodriguez-Zuniga and her son asserted that she had suffered past persecution and had a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of her political opinion of refusing to submit to violence by criminal groups or gangs, and their claimed membership in three particular social groups: “Guatemalan families that lack an immediate family male protector,” “Guatemalan women,” and “immediate family members of Doris Amanda Rodriguez-Zuniga.” Because the record did not compel the conclusion that Guatemalan society perceived it as a distinct group, the panel held that Rodriguez-Zuniga failed to show that the agency erred in concluding that her proposed social group ** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. RODRIGUEZ-ZUNIGA V. GARLAND 3 comprised of “Guatemalan families that lack an immediate family male protector” was not cognizable. The panel also concluded that substantial evidence supported the agency’s determination that Rodriguez-Zuniga had not expressed a political opinion. The panel explained that Rodriguez- Zuniga’s refusal to give money to the threatening robber was not evidence of a “conscious and deliberate” decision that would naturally result in attributing a political position to her, and that she instead simply reacted to being robbed. Absent some evidence that Rodriguez-Zuniga expressed a political opinion beyond merely her resistance to being robbed, the panel concluded that the agency did not err in determining that she failed to establish nexus to a political opinion. Turning to Rodriguez-Zuniga’s family social group claim, the panel concluded that the murder of Rodriguez- Zuniga’s cousin and her cousin’s son because they refused to pay the gangs did not compel any conclusion about the robber’s motivation in Rodriguez-Zuniga’s case. The panel further concluded that Rodriguez-Zuniga failed …
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