NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION File Name: 19a0571n.06 No. 19-3027 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Nov 14, 2019 FLORINDA FLORIDALMA DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk GOMEZ-CHAVEZ, et al., Petitioners, ON PETITION FOR REVIEW v. FROM THE UNITED STATES BOARD OF IMMIGRATION WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, APPEALS Respondent. BEFORE: CLAY, THAPAR, and NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judges. CLAY, Circuit Judge. Petitioner Florinda Gomez-Chavez, on behalf of herself and her minor child, seeks review from a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) denying their application for asylum and withholding of removal, as well as their motion to terminate removal proceedings for lack of jurisdiction. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1158, 1231(b)(3); 8 C.F.R. § 1003.14(a). For the reasons set forth below, we deny her petition for review. I. BACKGROUND Gomez-Chavez and her child are citizens of Guatemala. They entered the United States on May 5, 2014 after traveling through Mexico, and the following day were served with a notice to appear for removal proceedings, charging them with entering the country without being admitted by an immigration officer. The notice to appear did not include a date and time for her initial No. 19-3027 hearing, and instead said it would occur “on a date to be set at a time to be set.” (A.R. at 245.) 1 Gomez-Chavez later received notices of hearings that included the dates and times of her immigration proceedings, with her first hearing set for September 9, 2014. Gomez-Chavez attended that hearing and all subsequent hearings. At the September 9, 2014 hearing, the immigration judge continued her case to July 28, 2015 so that Gomez-Chavez would have time to retain a lawyer. On July 7, 2015, Gomez- Chavez—now represented by counsel—signed and submitted an application for asylum and withholding of removal. When asked why she did not file within the first year of her arrival in the United States, Gomez-Chavez said it was because she didn’t know that she could. She appeared for a hearing later that month and formally filed the application with the court, and a hearing on the application’s merits was set for October 11, 2017. Gomez-Chavez’s application was based on her fear of persecution for “[m]embership in a particular social group.” (Id. at 189); see also 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A) (“[T]he Attorney General may not remove an alien to a country if the Attorney General decides that the alien’s life or freedom would be threatened in that country because of the alien’s . . . membership in a particular social group . . . .”). At the October 11, 2015 hearing, Gomez-Chavez specified that her particular social group was “individuals with markers of wealth,” and that gang members targeted her because of this perceived wealth. (A.R. at 112–13.) Gomez-Chavez said she left Guatemala for the United States because she was being harassed by members of the “MS Gang” (presumably Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13). (Id. at 98–99; see also id. at 137.) At the time, Gomez-Chavez was attending school and living with ...
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