NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION File Name: 18a0571n.06 No. 18-3102 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Nov 13, 2018 RODERICO MATIAS-CIFUENTES, ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk ) Petitioner, ) ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW v. ) FROM THE UNITED STATES ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION MATTHEW G. WHITAKER, Acting ) APPEALS Attorney General, ) ) Respondent. ) ) BEFORE: BATCHELDER, COOK, and KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM. Roderico Matias-Cifuentes petitions this court for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing his appeal from the denial of his applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). As set forth below, we DENY Matias-Cifuentes’s petition for review. Matias-Cifuentes, a native and citizen of Guatemala, entered the United States without inspection, allegedly when he was eleven years old. In October 2010, when Matias-Cifuentes was eighteen years old, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) served him with a notice to appear in removal proceedings, charging him with removability as an alien present in the United States without being admitted or paroled. See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i). Matias-Cifuentes appeared before an immigration judge (IJ) and conceded removability. Matias-Cifuentes applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection, claiming that he feared that gang members would torture or kill him if he returned to Guatemala because he had refused the gang’s No. 18-3102, Matias-Cifuentes v. Whitaker order to kill a man. In July 2012, the IJ granted the parties’ joint motion to administratively close the proceedings. In December 2016, after Matias-Cifuentes was arrested for operating a vehicle under the influence (OVI), the DHS filed a motion to recalendar the proceedings, which the IJ granted. At the merits hearing, Matias-Cifuentes clarified that he sought relief based on his membership in a particular social group—his family. Matias-Cifuentes also moved to administratively close the proceedings on various grounds; the IJ denied his oral motions. In support of his applications for relief, Matias-Cifuentes testified that MS-13 members killed his uncle Fecundo and his good friend Hugo for refusing to join the gang. Matias-Cifuentes further testified that, at the age of eleven, he was playing soccer with friends when MS-13 members approached them. Matias-Cifuentes ran, but the gang members caught him. According to Matias- Cifuentes, the gang members told him to join the gang and, when he refused, beat him and burned him with a car lighter. Matias-Cifuentes then agreed to join the gang and was taken to the gang’s leader, who gave him a gun and ordered him to kill someone as part of the initiation process. Matias-Cifuentes and an older gang member went to the address given to them by the gang’s leader, but when Matias-Cifuentes saw the target with a child, he refused to kill the man and ran away to his uncle Alfonso’s house. Matias-Cifuentes called his mother in the United States, and she arranged for a smuggler to bring him to the United States. After Matias-Cifuentes’s departure, his uncle Alfonso told him ...
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