United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 19-2192 JOSÉ FRANCISCO LOJA-TENE, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS Before Lynch, Selya, and Barron, Circuit Judges. Daniel T. Welch and MacMurray & Associates on brief for petitioner. Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Melissa Neiman-Kelting, Assistant Director, Office of Immigration Litigation, and Jacob Bashyrov, Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, on brief for respondent. September 21, 2020 SELYA, Circuit Judge. Judicial review of factbound agency determinations is narrowly circumscribed: in immigration cases — as in other administrative-law contexts — a reviewing court must uphold the agency's factbound determinations as long as those determinations are supported by substantial evidence in the record, viewed as a whole. See Pulisir v. Mukasey, 524 F.3d 302, 307 (1st Cir. 2008). A straightforward application of this standard in the case at hand leads us to uphold the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) and, therefore, deny the petition for judicial review. The petitioner, José Francisco Loja-Tene, is an Ecuadorian national. He came to the United States without documentation in 2014, having left Ecuador for fear of harm at the hands of his adopted older brother (Angel). The petitioner's remaining family — including his wife, mother, children, and three sisters — remain in Ecuador. According to the petitioner, his brother has been involved in narcotics trafficking since the mid-1990s. From that time forward, Angel periodically made unwelcome visits to the Loja- Tene family, during which he attempted to strong-arm the petitioner and his father into trafficking cocaine at Angel's behest. Both men refused to cooperate, and Angel's ire mounted. It escalated in 2011, when Angel reportedly murdered the petitioner's father. - 2 - After the father's murder, Angel continued to pressure the petitioner to traffick cocaine. These pressure tactics included a threat delivered at gunpoint. Frightened by his brother's threats, the petitioner left Ecuador to seek passage to the United States. As an added precaution, his wife and children relocated to Peru, and then moved again to a remote Ecuadorian village (where they remain in hiding). Upon arriving in the United States, the petitioner applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT), alleging that he feared his brother will torture or kill him should he return to Ecuador. His argument for asylum and withholding of removal centered on his allegation that he faces persecution based on his membership in a particular social group (his family unit). The petitioner's family is a cognizable social group, he says, because his alleged persecutor (Angel) only sought to recruit immediate relatives. At a hearing before an immigration judge (IJ), the petitioner conceded removability and relied instead on his cross- applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection. The petitioner testified in his own behalf. The IJ found him credible but determined that he had failed to ...
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