NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS SEP 9 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT PAUL SOTO BARRIOS, No. 17-72728 Petitioner, Agency No. A079-355-978 v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted September 4, 2020** Seattle, Washington Before: HAWKINS and McKEOWN, Circuit Judges, and CALDWELL,*** District Judge. Paul Soto Barrios, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) decision affirming an immigration judge’s * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable Karen K. Caldwell, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Kentucky, sitting by designation. (IJ) denial of withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Barrios fears persecution by members of the Sinaloa drug cartel on account of his relationship to his father, whom Barrios believes was murdered by cartel members for allegedly serving as a police informant, as well as torture by local police in Tuxpan, Nayarit. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we deny Barrios’s petition. Substantial evidence supports the agency’s conclusion that Barrios failed to establish that it was more likely than not that he would be persecuted by the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. See Flores-Vega v. Barr, 932 F.3d 878, 886 (9th Cir. 2019). As the IJ and BIA discussed, it is not entirely clear from the evidence in the record who killed Barrios’s father or why. Plus, Barrios’s father was killed in the United States, not Mexico, and there was no evidence that either Barrios or any of his family members were threatened or harmed by the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico since his father’s death. Given these facts, the IJ and BIA agreed that Barrios’s fear of persecution at the hands of the Sinaloa cartel was simply too speculative to qualify him for withholding. Ultimately, the agency’s factual findings are conclusive, see Garcia-Milian v. Holder, 755 F.3d 1026, 1031 (9th Cir. 2014), and the evidence in 2 the record does not compel a contrary result, see Flores-Vega, 932 F.3d at 886. Thus, Barrios’s withholding claim fails.1 Substantial evidence also supports the agency’s denial of Barrios’s CAT claim. To be sure, the BIA first determined that Tuxpan police officers had tortured Barrios in 2014. That is significant because “‘past torture is ordinarily the principal factor on which we rely when an applicant who has been previously tortured seeks relief under the Convention.’” Avendano-Hernandez v. Lynch, 800 F.3d 1072, 1080 (9th Cir. 2015) (quoting Nuru v. Gonzales, 404 F.3d 1207, 1217 (9th Cir. 2005)). Indeed, “absent changed circumstances, ‘if an individual has been tortured and has escaped to another country, it is likely that he will be tortured again if returned to ...
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