NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ____________ No. 20-1679 ____________ IRAN PEREIRA DE SOUSA, AKA Iban Pereira DeSousa, AKA Iban Pereira De Sousa, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ____________ On Petition for Review of Orders from the Department of Homeland Security and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (A200-131-248) Immigration Judge: Matthew Watters ____________ Submitted on January 20, 2021 Before: SMITH, Chief Judge, HARDIMAN, and ROTH, Circuit Judges. (Filed: February 25, 2021) ___________ OPINION * ____________ * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge. Iran Pereira De Sousa petitions for review of an immigration judge’s final order of removal based on a negative reasonable fear determination. We will deny his petition. I De Sousa is a Brazilian citizen who was removed from the United States in 2005 for illegal entry. In 2019, he entered the United States illegally again—this time with his family—after they received a death threat from a loan shark in Brazil over De Sousa’s failure to pay back a loan of 20,000 reais (approximately $4,000). To cover the journey, De Sousa took on more debt from a human smuggler. Shortly after his second entry into the United States, De Sousa was issued a reinstated removal order. Months later, an asylum officer interviewed him to determine whether he could avoid removal by demonstrating a reasonable fear of persecution or torture in Brazil. De Sousa testified that he feared the loan shark, not mentioning the human smuggler. He explained that he borrowed money from the loan shark voluntarily but could not pay it back because he lost his job and, after briefly getting another job, lost that one too. De Sousa told the asylum officer that he would have “no problems” in Brazil if he paid the debt; that he had paid about one quarter of the debt back; and he could pay in full if he worked in the United States for another year and a half. A.R. 75. He also stated that neither he nor anyone in his family had been threatened or harmed because of ethnicity, nationality, religion, political opinion, or “membership in a particular group or organization.” A.R. 76. Finally, De Sousa testified that he did not 2 report the loan shark’s death threat to the Brazilian police because he “was afraid that if [the loan shark] found out, [his] situation would be worse.” Id. The asylum officer found De Sousa credible, but determined that he did not establish a reasonable fear of persecution based on a protected ground. In the officer’s view, De Sousa was in a group of people “unable to repay their debts,” but that group “is not statutorily protected[] [from persecution] because its membership lacks particularity and social distinction.” A.R. 80. The officer also concluded that because De Sousa “did not present specific and persuasive evidence that any [Brazilian] public officials acquiesced to” the loan ...
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