PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 18–2469 HECTOR DANIEL LOPEZ ORDONEZ, a/k/a Hector Lopez Ordonez, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: January 28, 2020 Decided: April 16, 2020 Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, WILKINSON, and WYNN, Circuit Judges. Petition for review granted; vacated and remanded by published opinion. Chief Judge Gregory wrote the opinion, in which Judge Wilkinson and Judge Wynn joined. ARGUED: Samuel Batiste Hartzell, WOMBLE BOND DICKINSON (US) LLP, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Petitioner. John Beadle Holt, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Ripley E. Rand, Rebecca C. Fleishman, WOMBLE BOND DICKINSON (US) LLP, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Petitioner. Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Claire L. Workman, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. GREGORY, Chief Judge: Hector Daniel Lopez Ordonez was conscripted into the Guatemalan military when he was 15 years old. As part of the G-2 intelligence unit, Lopez Ordonez was ordered— and repeatedly refused—to torture and kill people. After a particularly horrific incident in which Lopez Ordonez refused to murder a five-month-old baby and threatened to report the G-2’s abuses to human rights organizations, the G-2 confined him to a hole in the ground for ten months. Upon his release, he fled to the United States. Lopez Ordonez now petitions this Court to review an order from the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) denying his asylum application and ordering his removal to Guatemala. The BIA determined that Lopez Ordonez did not meet the nexus requirement to establish his eligibility for asylum—that is, he did not show past persecution on account of a statutorily protected ground. The record in this case, however, compels us to conclude that Lopez Ordonez has demonstrated that one central reason for his persecution by the Guatemalan military was his political opinion, a protected ground under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”). Accordingly, we vacate the BIA’s nexus determination and remand for further proceedings. I. A. Lopez Ordonez was born in Guatemala in 1964. In 1979, when he was 15 years old, he was forced to join the Guatemalan military. For his first six months in the military, he worked in an automotive shop and learned to drive equipment. After that, he was moved 2 to the G-2 intelligence unit, where he served as a driver for the unit’s missions. At the time, Guatemala was engaged in a decades-long civil war in which the government targeted and attempted to eliminate left-wing guerillas. The G-2’s missions included abducting, torturing, and murdering alleged criminals and guerilla members, as well as children and those the G-2 simply “didn’t like.” J.A. 197. As a driver for the G-2, Lopez Ordonez transported prisoners for detention or interrogation. He also had to blindfold and bind the hands of captured individuals. After interrogation, these individuals would either be released, jailed, or killed. ...
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