UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 18-1302 GUADALUPE DIAZ-VELASQUEZ, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: May 7, 2019 Decided: June 25, 2019 Before HARRIS, RICHARDSON, and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges. Petition for review granted in part, denied in part, and dismissed in part; remanded for further proceedings by unpublished opinion. Judge Harris wrote the opinion, in which Judge Richardson joined. Judge Quattlebaum wrote a separate concurring opinion. ARGUED: Anser Ahmad, AHMAD & ASSOCIATES, McLean, Virginia, for Petitioner. Paul Fiorino, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Joseph E. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Rebekah Nahas, 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 Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PAMELA HARRIS, Circuit Judge: Guadalupe Diaz-Velasquez testified credibly that he fled Guatemala after he was threatened and attacked by MS-13 gang members who were attempting to extort his family. Fearing further attacks if he is returned to Guatemala, Diaz-Velasquez now seeks relief, primarily in the form of withholding of removal. An immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals initially rejected Diaz- Velasquez’s application for withholding, finding that he failed to show the requisite “nexus” between MS-13’s threats against him and his membership in a cognizable “particular social group” – here, his family. We vacated the Board’s decision and remanded so that the agency could reconsider its nexus determination in light of intervening precedent counseling against “an excessively narrow reading” of the nexus requirement as applied to gang threats made to family members, Hernandez-Avalos v. Lynch, 784 F.3d 944, 949 (4th Cir. 2015). On remand, the Board again found that Diaz- Velasquez could not show the necessary nexus between his family status and the threats to his safety. We conclude that the Board erred in holding that Diaz-Velasquez did not meet the nexus requirement. The record compels the conclusion that at least one central reason for Diaz-Velasquez’s past victimization was his membership in his family, a protected social group under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Accordingly, we vacate the denial of withholding of removal, and remand for further proceedings on that claim. I. 2 Guadalupe Diaz-Velasquez entered the United States without inspection in December 2000. Approximately 11 years later, the Department of Homeland Security served him with a notice to appear, charging him as removable for being present in the United States without proper admission or parole, see 8 U.S.C § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i). Diaz- Velasquez conceded his removability, but applied for withholding of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act. 1 We begin by summarizing the testimony and evidence Diaz-Velasquez presented at his removal hearing and then outline the legal proceedings that followed. A. Diaz-Velasquez was born in rural Guatemala, where his family owned a small coffee bean farm. When he was 11 or 12 years old, members of the gang Mara Salvatrucha, known as “MS-13,” threatened and attempted ...
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