United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 17-1782 KAREN LILIANA RIVAS-DURÁN, ET AL., Petitioners, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS Before Howard, Chief Judge, Torruella and Kayatta, Circuit Judges. Ondine Galvez Sniffin and Law Office of Ondine G. Sniffin, on brief for petitioners. Jason Wisecup, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Chad A. Readler, Acting Assistant Attorney General, and Bernard A. Joseph, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, on brief for respondent. June 17, 2019 TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge. Appellant Karen Liliana Rivas Durán ("Rivas-Durán") fled her native El Salvador and entered the United States without inspection with her twin sons. After being detained, Rivas-Durán sought asylum, with her sons as derivative beneficiaries, claiming that the children's father threatened her on numerous occasions. The Immigration Judge ("IJ") granted Rivas-Durán's application for asylum, but the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") vacated the IJ's decision and ordered her removal, holding that she was ineligible for asylum under 8 U.S.C. § 1158 or withholding of removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3). The BIA found that Rivas-Durán failed to establish that she suffered persecution or that she was a member of her particular social group, "women in El Salvador unable to leave a domestic relationship." Rivas-Durán now appeals. After careful review, we deny her petition. I. Background On July 1, 2014, the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") charged Rivas-Durán and her sons with removability under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i), as aliens present in the United States who have not been admitted or paroled. Rivas-Durán sought asylum and withholding of removal, with her sons as derivative beneficiaries of her asylum application. -2- In support of her I-589 Application for Political Asylum and Withholding of Removal, Rivas-Durán declared that when she was eighteen years-old she met Pedro Ernesto Burgos-Rivas ("Pedro"), and after dating him for six months she became pregnant with twins. After learning of her pregnancy, Pedro "became aggressive" and would "grab [Rivas-Durán] by her shoulders." "At that point," Rivas-Durán "told him [that they] needed to end [their] relationship[,] but he insisted on calling [her]." During that time, she lived with her father. While Pedro visited Rivas-Durán in the hospital after she gave birth, she declared that she did not see him again until eight months later when he suddenly showed up at her father's house. During that visit, Pedro became aggressive towards Rivas- Durán after she received a phone call, slapping her and pushing her down on the sofa. After that incident, Rivas-Durán did not see Pedro for more than a year. She declared that Pedro, who was a gang member, continued to harass and threaten her intermittently until she moved to the United States. On one occasion, when the twins were three years-old, Pedro showed up at her father's house with "about 3 other gang members" and warned her that if she "didn't want to put [her] sons in ...
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