Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 18-1325 JAMES NJOGU MUHORO, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL,* Respondent. PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS Before Lynch, Circuit Judge, Souter,** Associate Justice, and Stahl, Circuit Judge. Jeffrey B. Rubin and Rubin Pomerleau PC on brief for petitioner. Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, Emily Anne Radford, Assistant Director, and Aric A. Anderson, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, on brief for respondent. * Pursuant to Fed. R. App. P. 43(c)(2), Attorney General William P. Barr has been substituted for former Attorney General Jefferson B. Sessions, III as the respondent. ** Hon. David H. Souter, Associate Justice (Ret.) of the Supreme Court of the United States, sitting by designation. March 13, 2019 STAHL, Circuit Judge. Petitioner James Njogu Muhoro seeks review of a Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") order denying him asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture ("CAT"). The BIA affirmed the Immigration Judge's ("IJ") rulings that Muhoro failed to timely file his application for asylum and, separately, that he demonstrated neither the past persecution or probability of future persecution required for withholding of removal nor the likelihood of torture required for CAT-based relief. After careful consideration, we dismiss Muhoro's claim for asylum and deny his claims for withholding of removal or relief under the CAT. I. Muhoro is a native and citizen of Kenya, and a member of the Kikuyu tribe.1 In 1992, conflict broke out between the Kikuyu and another tribe, the Kalenjin. According to Muhoro, when he was eighteen years old, leaders from his community brought about fifty to sixty young people to a meeting, ostensibly for the purpose of devising a defense against Kalenjin attacks. Once there, however, the leaders revealed that the meeting's true purpose was to be an initiation ceremony for the Mungiki, a self-organized Kikuyu militant group formed to defend against Kalenjin incursions. 1 We draw the relevant facts from the IJ's written order and from the administrative record. See Aguirre v. Holder, 728 F.3d 48, 50 (1st Cir. 2013). - 3 - Muhoro claims that the Mungiki representatives, armed with knives and machetes, required attendees to take part in an initiation ritual, and threatened them with death if they did not do so. Muhoro testified that, although he participated in the initiation, on the following day, he fled his hometown rather than remain with the Mungiki. He later learned that two of his cousins who remained with the militants were killed by members of that group when they retreated from a skirmish with the Kalenjin. For the next seven years, Muhoro lived with an aunt, whose home was roughly a five-hour drive away from his hometown. He testified that he limited his social interactions and did not return home during that time, as he feared being identified as a Mungiki "defector" and killed. He further claimed that, after ...
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