NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 26 2021 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT JOSE NOEL LISAMA RIVERA, No. 17-72360 Petitioner, Agency No. A200-068-462 v. MEMORANDUM* ROBERT M. WILKINSON, Acting Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted December 11, 2020 Pasadena, California Before: GOULD and R. NELSON, Circuit Judges, and COGAN,** District Judge. Jose Noel Lisama Rivera (“Lisama”), a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions for review of the decision by an immigration judge (“IJ”) affirming an asylum officer’s negative reasonable fear determination. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we deny the petition. * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Brian M. Cogan, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation. In 2005, Lisama was ordered removed in absentia when he failed to appear for a removal hearing. He was removed in 2013 but then reentered the United States that same year. When the Department of Homeland Security recommended reinstatement of the order of removal in 2017, Lisama expressed a fear of persecution if he were returned to El Salvador, and he was referred to an asylum officer. The asylum officer found that Lisama credibly testified as to past harm and threats and his fear of future harm and threats rising to the level of persecution, but that neither was on account of a protected ground. The IJ upheld the asylum officer’s findings, concluding that Lisama was targeted for extortion by a gang that believed he had money after his return to the United States, and that this harm did not implicate a protected ground. Substantial evidence supports the IJ’s determination that there is no nexus between the past harm Lisama faced in El Salvador and a protected ground. Lisama was targeted by gang members because they perceived him to have money, which is not targeting based on a protected ground. Bartolome v. Sessions, 904 F.3d 803, 814 (9th Cir. 2018). He was also targeted because gang members thought that he had encouraged a rival gang to attack them, but this type of personal vendetta does not satisfy the requisite nexus. Molina-Morales v. INS, 237 F.3d 1048, 1051–52 (9th Cir. 2001). Substantial evidence also supports the IJ’s determination that the harm 2 Lisama fears if he is returned to El Salvador would not be on account of a protected ground. Lisama argues that the IJ failed to consider his claim of persecution on account of membership in his family group. Persecution on account of “membership in a particular social group” is persecution on account of a protected ground, see 8 C.F.R. § 208.31(c), and “the family remains the quintessential particular social group,” Rios v. Lynch, 807 F.3d 1123, 1128 (9th Cir. 2015). But a nexus is not established simply because a family ...
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