Case: 22-60248 Document: 00516685911 Page: 1 Date Filed: 03/22/2023 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit ____________ FILED March 22, 2023 No. 22-60248 Summary Calendar Lyle W. Cayce ____________ Clerk Maria Aura Palencia-Ascencio De Ortiz; Hugo Jeferson Ortiz-Palencia; Marlen Karina Ortiz-Palencia, Petitioners, versus Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General, Respondent. ______________________________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Agency No. A213 119 743 Agency No. A213 119 744 Agency No. A213 119 745 ______________________________ Before Higginbotham, Graves, and Ho, Circuit Judges. Per Curiam: * Maria Aura Palencia-Ascencio De Ortiz and two of her minor children, Hugo Jeferson Ortiz-Palencia and Marlen Karina Ortiz-Palencia, all natives and citizens of Guatemala, petition for review of the dismissal by the _____________________ * This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5. Case: 22-60248 Document: 00516685911 Page: 2 Date Filed: 03/22/2023 No. 22-60248 Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) of their appeal from the denial by the immigration judge (IJ) of their applications for asylum, withholding of removal (WOR), and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The petitioners challenge the agency’s denial of asylum and WOR based on its finding that there was not a nexus between the petitioners’ suffered and feared persecution and their family-based proposed particular social groups. We lack jurisdiction to consider the unexhausted contention that the BIA erred by reviewing the IJ’s lack-of-nexus finding under the clear error standard of review. See Avelar-Oliva v. Barr, 954 F.3d 757, 766 (5th Cir. 2020). Because this assertion raises a completely new ground for relief arising solely as a consequence of the BIA’s alleged error, the petitioners were required to, but did not, exhaust the issue in a motion to reconsider filed with the BIA. See Martinez-Guevara v. Garland, 27 F.4th 353, 360 (5th Cir. 2022). There is no merit to the petitioners’ substantive challenge to the agency’s determination that the required nexus was absent because the gang targeted them with criminal intent and their family relationship to an extorted person was not a central reason for the persecution. See Vazquez-Guerra v. Garland, 7 F.4th 265, 270 (5th Cir. 2021), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 1228 (2022) (stating that “[t]hreats or attacks motivated by criminal intentions do not provide a basis for protection”); Gonzales-Veliz v. Barr, 938 F.3d 219, 224 (5th Cir. 2019) (explaining that, under the nexus requirement for asylum and WOR, the statutorily protected ground must be a central reason for the persecution and cannot be incidental or subordinate to another reason for harm); see also Ramirez-Mejia v. Lynch, 794 F.3d 485, 493 (5th Cir. 2015) (finding that persecution was not on account of family membership where there was no reason to suppose that the demand for information about the applicant’s brother was based on “hatred for [the] family”). The petitioners 2 Case: 22-60248 Document: 00516685911 Page: 3 Date Filed: 03/22/2023 No. 22-60248 have not established that the evidence compels a contrary conclusion. See Gonzales-Veliz, 938 …
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