USCA4 Appeal: 22-1193 Doc: 50 Filed: 12/09/2022 Pg: 1 of 13 UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 21-1441 MANUEL ANTONIO ORELLANA ALVARADO, Petitioner, v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. No. 22-1193 MANUEL ANTONIO ORELLANA ALVARADO, Petitioner, v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: October 28, 2022 Decided: December 9, 2022 Before WYNN and RUSHING, Circuit Judges, and MOTZ, Senior Circuit Judge. USCA4 Appeal: 22-1193 Doc: 50 Filed: 12/09/2022 Pg: 2 of 13 Petition for review denied in part and dismissed in part by unpublished per curiam opinion. ARGUED: Daniel Warren Thomann, DANIEL THOMANN, P.C., Chicago, Illinois, for Petitioner. Jessica Danielle Strokus, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Brian M. Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Anthony C. Payne, Assistant Director, Lance L. Jolley, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. 2 USCA4 Appeal: 22-1193 Doc: 50 Filed: 12/09/2022 Pg: 3 of 13 PER CURIAM: Petitioner Manuel Orellana Alvarado seeks review of two orders of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“Board”) denying his petition for withholding of removal and affirming the Immigration Judge’s denial of relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We conclude that his challenges are without merit in light of the steep standard of review. Orellana Alvarado also contends that each Board decision was void ab initio because each was rendered by a Board member illicitly serving beyond their appointed term. But we lack jurisdiction to consider that argument because Orellana Alvarado failed to exhaust it before the Board. Accordingly, we deny the petition in part and dismiss it in part. I. Orellana Alvarado is a native and citizen of Honduras who has spent time in the United States sporadically since 1990, leading to three separate terms of imprisonment for illegal reentry. Following the completion of his first such sentence, Orellana Alvarado was removed to Honduras in April 2013. In January 2014, Orellana Alvarado became a licensed cab driver in Honduras. Shortly thereafter, the MS-13 gang began to extort money from him weekly as a condition of permitting him to drive his cab. Armed gang members also forced Orellana Alvarado to give them rides, usually without pay. On one occasion, gang members got into his taxi at gunpoint, struck him with a gun, and forced him to drive them while they kidnapped another man. At times, gang members threatened to kill him. 3 USCA4 Appeal: 22-1193 Doc: 50 Filed: 12/09/2022 Pg: 4 of 13 The record supports that such extortion and violence directed at transportation workers was not uncommon in Honduras at the time. One 2019 news report stated that “an estimated 1,500 Hondurans driving buses or taxis [had] been murdered” since 2010. A.R. 584. 1 Orellana Alvarado witnessed two such murders firsthand in May and August 2014. The second murder was of Orellana Alvarado’s relative …
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