NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS SEP 1 2021 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT JOSE SAMUEL SANCHEZ-LOPEZ, et al. No. 18-72221 Petitioners, Agency Nos. A202-004-113 A202-004-112 v. A208-277-633 A208-277-634 MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, MEMORANDUM* Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted June 29, 2021** Pasadena, California Before: MILLER and LEE, Circuit Judges, and HILLMAN,*** District Judge. Petitioners Jose Samuel Sanchez-Lopez, Yeimi Diaz-Lopez, and * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** Oral argument was scheduled for this matter on March 5, 2021, but the panel granted the parties’ motion for referral to mediation on February 25, 2021. The panel unanimously concludes that this case is suitable for disposition without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable Timothy S. Hillman, United States District Judge for the District of Massachusetts, sitting by designation. their children, S.A. Diaz-Lopez and A.D. Lopez-Diaz, natives and citizens of El Salvador, petition for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of their applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1). We deny the petition. 1. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s denial of asylum based on the proposed particular social group of “vendors threatened with extortion in El Salvador.” The record does not compel the conclusion that the definition of the proposed group is sufficiently particular. In other words, it is not “defined by characteristics that provide a clear benchmark for determining who falls within the group, such that the group possesses ‘discrete and . . . definable boundaries’” which are not “amorphous, overbroad, diffuse, or subjective.” Diaz-Reynoso v. Barr, 968 F.3d 1070, 1077 (9th Cir. 2020) (citing Matter of M-E-V-G-, 26 I & N 227, 239 (BIA 2014); Nguyen v. Barr, 983 F.3d 1099, 1103 (9th Cir. 2020) (citing Matter of W-G-R-, 26 I & N Dec. 208, 214 (BIA 2014)). In addition, substantial evidence supports the BIA’s determination that the group is impermissibly circular. The BIA has long held that to be cognizable, “a particular social group must ‘exist independently’” of the harm claimed by an applicant for asylum or withholding of removal and that “individuals in the group must share a narrowing 2 characteristic other than risk of being persecuted,” and Petitioners’ proposed social group cannot exist independently outside of the unifying fact that they have been threatened with extortion. Diaz-Reynoso at 1081 (emphasis in original) (citing Matter of M-E-V-G-, 26 I & N 227, 236 n.11 (BIA 2014). Furthermore, the BIA’s reference to Matter of A-B-I’s general observation that “[s]ocial groups defined by their vulnerability to private criminal activity likely lack the particularity required under M-E-V-G-, given that broad swaths of society may be susceptible to victimization” does not require remand, despite the Attorney …
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