USCA4 Appeal: 20-1305 Doc: 42 Filed: 10/24/2022 Pg: 1 of 12 PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 20-1305 MARIA MORALES, Petitioner, v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: September 16, 2022 Decided: October 24, 2022 Before WILKINSON, WYNN, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges. Petition for review denied in part and dismissed in part by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the opinion in which Judge Wynn and Judge Diaz joined. ARGUED: Ronald Darwin Richey, LAW OFFICE OF RONALD D. RICHEY, Rockville, Maryland, for Petitioner. Jennifer A. Singer, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Shelley R. Goad, Assistant Director, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. USCA4 Appeal: 20-1305 Doc: 42 Filed: 10/24/2022 Pg: 2 of 12 WILKINSON, Circuit Judge: Maria Segunda Morales, a native of El Salvador, filed this petition for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denying her petition for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the U.N. Convention Against Torture (CAT). She contends chiefly that the BIA and immigration judge (IJ) erred in rejecting her claim of persecution on account of “membership in a particular social group”—a precondition for her asylum claim under 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b). For the reasons that follow, we deny in part and dismiss in part the petition for review. I. In the fall of 2015, then fifty-three-year-old Maria Morales crossed the Rio Grande into Texas. Six days after her arrival, federal authorities located her close to a hundred miles from the southern border. Questioned at that time by a border patrol agent, Morales explained that she had come to the United States to “look for work” and denied fearing persecution or torture in El Salvador. She was subsequently detained in Tacoma, Washington, and charged—pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I)—with removal for lacking a valid entry document. Weeks later, before a Tacoma-based immigration judge, Morales announced her intention to apply for asylum. With the aid of counsel, she submitted an application, complete with additional claims for withholding of removal and CAT protection. Two days after filing, Morales posted bond of $7,500 and moved to Maryland to live with her adult son, who had illegally entered the United States years earlier. 2 USCA4 Appeal: 20-1305 Doc: 42 Filed: 10/24/2022 Pg: 3 of 12 The merits of Morales’s application eventually went before a Baltimore-based immigration judge in March 2018. At a hearing, Morales testified that she had been raped by a cousin in El Salvador and abused by an ex-partner, who fathered her son, left her, returned, and is now deceased. Morales added, however, that her cousin was alive and had threatened her as recently as 2015 but not physically harmed her since the 1970s. Morales also discussed a robbery by MS-13 gang members that she alleges witnessing in September 2015. She testified …
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