United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________ No. 19-1506 ___________________________ Elvira Meza Cano Petitioner v. William P. Barr, Attorney General of United States Respondent ____________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals ____________ Submitted: March 12, 2020 Filed: April 23, 2020 ____________ Before GRUENDER, WOLLMAN, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges. ____________ SHEPHERD, Circuit Judge. Elvira Meza Cano (Meza) petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirming an immigration judge’s (IJ) denial of her applications for asylum, withholding of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Having jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, we deny the petition. I. Meza, a native and citizen of Mexico, entered the United States at the San Ysidro, California port of entry on or about September 18, 2014. On October 30, 2014, the Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against Meza, charging her as removable pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I) (providing that any immigrant who, at the time of application for admission, “is not in possession of a valid unexpired immigrant visa, reentry permit, border crossing identification card, or other valid entry document . . . is inadmissible”). Meza conceded that she was removable as charged, but applied for relief from removal in the forms of asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT. In a hearing before an IJ, Meza claimed that she feared persecution in Mexico due to her membership in a particular social group consisting of “immediate family members of Alberto Jorge Gonzalez Meza,” her son. Meza testified that she was visiting Alberto at his home in Actopan, Mexico in August 2014 when five or six men entered the home. The men were wearing ski masks and dark colored clothing, which Meza thought looked blue. She could not tell if the men “were wearing uniforms or not.” The men proceeded to beat Alberto and demand money from him. Meza tried to intervene, but one of the men pushed her back into a bedroom, pointed a gun at her, and yelled at her to “get back in there or the same thing [wa]s going to happen to [her].” As the men continued to beat Alberto, Meza heard them exclaim that members of the Zeta drug cartel “were nothing” and that a drug cartel called “the Gulfos were now in charge.” The men dragged Alberto out of the house, and Meza heard a truck or van drive away. Before leaving, the men stole “anything of value” from the house, including laptops, phones, and televisions. -2- The next morning, Meza visited her nephew who works at the “municipal house” where the President1 of Actopan also works. Meza told her nephew about the incident, and he suggested that she file a police report. Meza explained to him that she did not want to file a police report because the kidnappers threatened to kill her if she went to the police. Later that day, ...
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