NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 17 2022 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT LUCIA MARIA JOSE, No. 19-70500 Petitioner, Agency No. A209-389-597 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted May 4, 2021 Pasadena, California Before: WARDLAW and GOULD, Circuit Judges, and DONATO,** District Judge. Lucia Maria Jose, a native and citizen of Mozambique, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) dismissal of her appeal of an Immigration Judge’s (IJ) denial of her application for asylum, withholding of * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable James Donato, United States District Judge for the Northern District of California, sitting by designation. removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). We have jurisdiction under section 242 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We deny the petition. 1. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s determination that the Government met its burden of rebutting the presumption of future persecution arising from the IJ’s finding that Jose suffered past persecution at the hands of her parents and the local Muslim community due to her conversion to Christianity. The Government demonstrated that there had been a fundamental change in circumstances since Jose endured public shaming instigated by her Muslim parents in 2000, when she was 14. Both parents have been deceased since 2013. And before they passed, according to Jose, she became friends with them and “resolved their differences.” Further, though Jose remained in Mozambique through 2016, there is no evidence that she suffered any religion-related harm from 2013 to 2016. As for her local community, Jose testified that “everything is ok” with her congregation and that she would not be harmed in the future because of her religion. Jose’s reliance on Muhur v. Ashcroft, 355 F.3d 958 (7th Cir. 2004) is thus misplaced, as her admission that she does not fear future persecution on the basis of religion did not rest on her concealing her religious beliefs. See 355 F.3d at 960–61. 2 Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s finding that Jose failed to demonstrate a nexus between Fernando’s attempt to kill her and subsequent harassment and her religion. Jose testified she did not know why Fernando was after her and “to this day” she does not “have any clue.” Asylum applicants must offer “some evidence” of a persecutor’s motive. INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 483 (1992). Rather, the record indicates that Fernando did not attempt to kill her because of her religious beliefs, but that he was contracted to kill her, and “just doing his job.” Similarly, Jose’s assertions that she was sexually assaulted by two older neighborhood boys following her public shaming, that she received menacing calls for several years, and that she was the victim of home break-ins that worsened after her …
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