United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________ No. 20-1534 ___________________________ Hugo Bautista-Bautista, lllllllllllllllllllllPetitioner, v. Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General of the United States,* lllllllllllllllllllllRespondent. ____________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals ____________ Submitted: January 11, 2021 Filed: July 6, 2021 ____________ Before COLLOTON, WOLLMAN, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges. ____________ COLLOTON, Circuit Judge. Hugo Bautista-Bautista, a citizen and native of Guatemala, petitions for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals denying his applications for * Attorney General Garland is automatically substituted for his predecessor under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 43(c)(2). withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture. We deny the petition. I. In September 2010, Bautista-Bautista entered the United States at the age of nineteen. A Border Patrol agent arrested Bautista-Bautista in New York after he admitted that he was a Guatemalan citizen, and that he had entered the United States at the border with Mexico without inspection. The Department of Homeland Security then served Bautista-Bautista with a Notice to Appear, alleging that he was removable as an alien unlawfully present in the United States under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i). After a change of venue, the case was heard in immigration court in Omaha, Nebraska. Bautista-Bautista conceded his removability, and an immigration judge denied Bautista-Bautista’s claim for relief under the Convention Against Torture. Bautista- Bautista appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the Board remanded for further findings of fact. On remand, Bautista-Bautista expanded his claim for relief to include withholding of removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A), arguing that he could not be removed to Guatemala because his “life or freedom would be threatened” due to his “membership in a particular social group.” In his renewed immigration proceedings, Bautista-Bautista explained that he left Guatemala to escape a vigilante group known as “Seguridad” that operated in his hometown of Todos Santos. He testified that this group, composed of approximately sixteen or seventeen members, targeted him in June 2010 because he was a “youth,” and that the group searched his body for tattoos because it believed that a tattoo signified membership in a gang. The Seguridad members cut off a tattoo from Bautista-Bautista’s back, and threatened to cut off a tattooed finger if he did not -2- remove the tattoo himself. Bautista-Bautista decided to keep his tattoo and fled to the United States. Bautista-Bautista testified that Seguridad would “just attack the youth,” but admitted that he was no longer a youth. Bautista-Bautista further explained that Seguridad had not targeted his brother because his brother was “older.” He clarified that his fear was that the group would remember his promise to remove the tattoo on his finger, because the vigilantes had recorded his name. Bautista-Bautista also conceded that he never reported the incident to Guatemalan authorities. An immigration judge denied Bautista-Bautista’s claims for relief. On the withholding claim, the judge determined that Bautista-Bautista had proposed two potential social groups: “tattooed Guatemalan youths” and “people who promised …
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