NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 16 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT NANCY JUDITH CABRERA-LOPEZ, No. 19-70381 Petitioner, Agency No. A216-179-822 v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted November 19, 2020 Pasadena, California Before: PAEZ and VANDYKE, Circuit Judges, and IMMERGUT,** District Judge. Petitioner Nancy Cabrera-Lopez (“Cabrera-Lopez”), a citizen of Guatemala, seeks review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) dismissing her appeal of an Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) decision denying her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Karin J. Immergut, United States District Judge for the District of Oregon, sitting by designation. implementing regulations to the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we deny the petition. 1. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s finding that Cabrera-Lopez failed to establish a nexus between the persecution alleged and her family membership. See Parussimova v. Mukasey, 555 F.3d 734, 739 (9th Cir. 2009) (findings regarding a persecutor’s motive are reviewed for substantial evidence). The record does not compel the conclusion that Cabrera-Lopez’s family membership was “a reason” or “one central reason” for the threatening text messages she received following her daughter’s 2013 murder, the physical assault she suffered several years later in 2017, or any other harms described in her application. See Barajas- Romero v. Lynch, 846 F.3d 351, 357–60 (9th Cir. 2017) (discussing 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(C)’s “a reason” standard for withholding of removal and 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i)’s “one central reason” standard for asylum); 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B) (“administrative findings of fact are conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary”). Cabrera-Lopez’s testimony indicated that the threatening texts she received were specifically tied to the demand that she stop investigating her daughter’s murder. There is no indication in the record that Cabrera-Lopez’s husband or other seven children were similarly contacted with threats in the wake of her daughter’s death. Indeed, her husband and most of their children have remained in her 2 hometown, unharmed, since she left. While the text threats were related to the murder of Cabrera-Lopez’s family member, substantial evidence supports the conclusion that her family membership itself did not motivate the threats. The record does not establish anything about the motivation behind the 2017 attack. Cabrera-Lopez does not know the identity of her attacker. She claims the attacker threatened to kill her children unless she went “away” but did not explain why he wanted her to leave. Although Cabrera-Lopez may plausibly believe the attack was motivated by her family membership, the BIA’s determination that the attacker simply wanted her to cease investigating her daughter’s death is supported by substantial evidence. Finally, nothing in the record suggests other past ...
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