NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 21a0570n.06 No. 21-3044 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED ) Dec 07, 2021 JESSICA ARELI CALDERON-PORTILLO, ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk ) Petitioner, ) ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW v. ) FROM THE UNITED STATES ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, ) APPEALS ) Respondent. ) ) Before: BATCHELDER, ROGERS, and WHITE, Circuit Judges. ROGERS, Circuit Judge. Jessica Calderon-Portillo, a citizen of El Salvador, appeals the Board of Immigration Appeals’ denial of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. Calderon’s asylum and withholding-of-removal claims require her to prove a “nexus” between her fear of persecution and her membership in a particular social group. Calderon did not appeal the nexus determination to the Board, but even if she had, she cannot establish the required nexus. Calderon also does not qualify for relief under the Convention Against Torture, because she has not shown that the state would acquiesce in any potential torture. Calderon’s application is based on her fear of being killed by violent gangs that control her area. Calderon is from the department of Chalatenango in El Salvador. In 2014, gangs killed several people in the area where Calderon attended school. One day, Calderon was on the way Case No. 21-3044, Calderon-Portillo v. Garland home from school and saw a dead man on the street. A group of three or four men were standing by the body. One of the men was wearing a face cover and approached Calderon with a gun. The man told Calderon that if she said anything about what she saw, “the same thing was going to happen to [her].” Calderon did not call the police because she was afraid the men would harm her or her family if she did so. Calderon testified that, even if she had called the police, the police would not have helped due to their own fear of the gangs. Calderon suspects that the men were members of MS-18, the gang that controlled the area. A few days after the incident, Calderon’s parents decided she needed to leave the country for her safety. Calderon fled El Salvador in April 2014 and arrived in the United States as an unaccompanied minor in July 2014. Calderon has not been contacted by the gang since the incident and is not aware of their searching for her in El Salvador. Calderon testified “I don’t believe they’re still looking for me. I don’t think that anything will happen with that, but my concern is the present conditions of the country right now, what’s going on in the country. That is what I fear the most.” Calderon is afraid to return to El Salvador “because the conditions in my country everyday are worse, and for them, it’s like a hobby just to kill the people and rob people.” She testified that she could not relocate within El Salvador to find safety, because the gangs control the entire …
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