NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 21a0474n.06 Case No. 20-4307 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Oct 20, 2021 ) MARIA MULUL-GUTIERREZ, DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk ) ) Petitioner, ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW ) FROM THE UNITED STATES v. ) ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION ) APPEALS MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, ) ) OPINION Respondent. ) Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; McKEAGUE and WHITE, Circuit Judges. McKEAGUE, Circuit Judge. Maria Mulul-Gutierrez, a native citizen of Guatemala, seeks review of a Board of Immigration Appeals order denying her application for asylum. The Board concluded that Mulul-Gutierrez could reasonably relocate within Guatemala to escape harm. Because the record does not compel a contrary conclusion, we deny the petition for review. I. Petitioner Maria Mulul-Gutierrez is a native citizen of Guatemala who entered the United States without authorization in February 2013. During removal proceedings, Mulul-Gutierrez applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture based on her religion and membership in a particular social group, which she identified as “Catholic youth ministers in Guatemala who work with gang members and other at-risk youth.” A.R. at 84. Case No. 20-4307, Mulul-Gutierrez v. Garland Mulul-Gutierrez testified at a merits hearing in support of her requested relief. Her testimony revealed that in 2005, at the age of 14, Mulul-Gutierrez joined a youth group in her hometown with the Charismatic Catholic Renewal movement. Led by their pastor, members of the youth group would travel to a nearby city a few times a week to preach the gospel to members and former members of the 18th Street gang, one of the two principal transnational gangs in Central America. The pastor of the youth group wanted to preach to gang members because “hurting and killing people is not good[.]” Id. at 90. The group preached that the gang members needed to “believe [in God] and repent themselves, and don’t kill because that is a sin.” Id. at 111. For nearly eight years, Mulul-Gutierrez preached in the city without any threats of harm. But that changed in December 2012 and January 2013 when the gang threatened her on two occasions. On the first occasion, seven gang members came to her house and told her that they wanted her to stop preaching the word of God. Four weeks later, on January 10, 2013, the same gang members again came to her door. This time, they had a pistol. They told her that they did not like her preaching and threatened to kill her if she continued. Mulul-Gutierrez believed that the gang did not like the group preaching because “they like to do harm, and we [didn’t] want them to do the harm[.]” Id. at 93. Mulul-Gutierrez fled to the United States soon after the gang members threatened her the second time. She told her pastor about the incident, who had also been threatened by the gang. But she did not call the police because she believed that the police were corrupt and would …
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