NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _____________ No. 19-2148 _____________ JUNIOR SANTIAGO AMAYA RIVAS, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ________________ On Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Agency No. A216-408-006) Immigration Judge: Nelson A. Vargas-Padilla ______________ Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) November 22, 2019 ______________ Before: CHAGARES, MATEY, and FUENTES, Circuit Judges. (Opinion filed: November 26, 2019) ____________ OPINION * ____________ * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and, pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7, does not constitute binding precedent. CHAGARES, Circuit Judge. Junior S. Amaya Rivas petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming an Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) decision to deny his applications for withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). For the following reasons, we will deny the petition for review. I. We write only for the parties, so our summary of the facts is brief. Amaya Rivas, a citizen and native of El Salvador, entered the United States in 2007. In 2018, he was placed into removal proceedings. Amaya Rivas conceded that he was removable and that he was ineligible for asylum, but he applied for withholding of removal and CAT protection. In support of his applications, Amaya Rivas testified that in 2003 or 2004, a man named Jose Bonilla kidnapped and assaulted his mother in El Salvador when she was picking up money that her husband had sent from the United States. Bonilla called Amaya Rivas’s family during the kidnapping and threatened to kill them. Over the next two years, Amaya Rivas’s family continued to receive threatening phone calls. Then, in 2006, Amaya Rivas experienced “something like an explosion” in his home in El Salvador, and he was burned. Petitioner’s Appendix (“App.”) 20. Amaya Rivas was later told Bonilla had sent someone to burn him. The IJ orally denied Amaya Rivas’s applications, deciding that even if Amaya Rivas’s evidence were credible, he had not demonstrated his eligibility for withholding of removal or CAT protection. Regarding withholding of removal, the IJ acknowledged 2 Amaya Rivas’s argument that he feared Bonilla would harm him because of a statutorily protected ground. Specifically, Amaya Rivas claimed that Bonilla targeted him because of his membership in a “particular social group,” comprised of those with “kinship ties” to his mother, or alternatively, those with disabilities. App. 7. Nonetheless, the IJ concluded that “[t]he one central reason” Bonilla targeted Amaya Rivas was his family’s perceived wealth, App. 7, and a group based on wealth is not a “cognizable social group” for withholding of removal, App. 8. The IJ then denied CAT protection because Amaya Rivas had not shown that if he were removed to El Salvador, he would be tortured at the instigation of, or with the consent or acquiescence of, a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. The BIA agreed with the IJ’s reasoning and affirmed the IJ’s decision on ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals