NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS AUG 27 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT KENIA MARTINEZ-MEJIA, No. 19-70245 Petitioner, Agency No. A209-133-348 v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted April 15, 2020 San Francisco, California Before: PAEZ and CLIFTON, Circuit Judges, and HARPOOL, ** District Judge. Kenia Martinez-Mejia (“Martinez”), a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order dismissing her appeal from an Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) denial of withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable M. Douglas Harpool, United States District Judge for the Western District of Missouri, sitting by designation. jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review de novo the agency’s legal determinations, and we review its factual findings for substantial evidence. Singh v. Holder, 656 F.3d 1047, 1051 (9th Cir. 2011). We grant in part and dismiss in part the petition for review and remand to the BIA for further consideration. 1. Martinez challenges the agency’s rejection of her proposed social group of “Salvadoran women.” To determine whether a proposed social group is cognizable, the BIA asks if the group is “(1) composed of members who share a common immutable characteristic, (2) defined with particularity, and (3) socially distinct within the society in question.” Rios v. Lynch, 807 F.3d 1123, 1127–28 (9th Cir. 2015). The IJ dismissed Martinez’s proposed group of “Salvadoran women” as impermissibly “broad and amorphous.” The IJ reasoned that the gender-based group was not cognizable because it “covers a significant portion of the Salvadoran population” and “is diffuse rather than discrete.” The IJ’s reasoning echoes the reasoning we disapproved in Perdomo v. Holder, 611 F.3d 662 (9th Cir. 2010). In that case, we “rejected the notion that a persecuted group may simply represent too large a portion of a population to allow its members to qualify for asylum.” Id. at 669 (citing Singh v. INS, 94 F.3d 1353, 1359 (9th Cir. 1996)). Rather, the focus of this inquiry should be directed toward whether individuals share “an innate characteristic [that] may be the basis for a 2 protected social group.” Id. at 668. The “size and breadth of a group alone does not preclude a group from qualifying as [] a social group.” Id. at 669. Before the BIA, Martinez argued that the IJ’s decision was inconsistent with the reasoning in Perdomo and was contrary to the substantial evidence showing that Salvadoran women are socially distinct within El Salvador. The BIA did not explicitly address this social group claim. While the BIA is “not free to ignore arguments raised by a petitioner,” Sagaydak v.Gonzales, 405 7 F.3d 1035, 1040 (9th Cir. 2005), in light of the BIA’s failure to address ...
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