PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 18-1513 RUTH JEANETTE ORELLANA, a/k/a Ruth Yeanette-Orellana, a/k/a Ruth Jeanetta Orellana, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: January 29, 2019 Decided: May 23, 2019 Before MOTZ, KING, and WYNN, Circuit Judges. Petition for review granted; remanded for further proceedings by published opinion. Judge Motz wrote the opinion, in which Judge King and Judge Wynn joined. ARGUED: Michael Ernest Rosado, LAW OFFICES OF ROSADO & SOLTREN, P.C., Beltsville, Maryland, for Petitioner. Rebecca Hoffberg Phillips, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Chad A. Readler, Acting Assistant Attorney General, John S. Hogan, Assistant Director, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge: Ruth Jeanette Orellana, a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions for review of the final order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) denying her all relief from deportation. The BIA upheld the finding of an immigration judge (“IJ”) that Orellana, although persecuted because of her membership in a particular social group, had failed to establish that the Salvadoran government was unwilling or unable to protect her from this persecution. Because the agency disregarded and distorted significant portions of the record in reaching this conclusion, we grant Orellana’s petition and remand the case for further proceedings. I. A. In 1992, when Orellana was fifteen years old, she met Jose Teodoro Garcia. They started dating, and soon began living together in San Vicente, El Salvador. When Orellana became pregnant with their first child the next year, Garcia began abusing her both verbally and physically. A pattern emerged in which Garcia would spend his wages on alcohol and then, while intoxicated, violently beat Orellana. He would “throw [her], shove [her],” “hit [her] with his fist,” and “choke [her].” Garcia also threatened her life with a grenade and by putting his gun to her head. In 1999, Orellana reported Garcia’s abuse to the Salvadoran police for the first time. The police officers responded to her call by talking to Garcia, but not arresting 2 him. Instead, they told Orellana that Garcia was “going to be alright and won’t be bothering you.” From that time forward, Orellana “would try to call the police every time [Garcia] would become abusive.” She would wait for the police in a locked room with their two children and a sanitation bucket, while Garcia would pace outside with a machete. The police would not “show up to [her] house for hours,” or sometimes not “show up” at all. Orellana also made efforts to become independent of Garcia, which he violently resisted. She tried to leave him by walking three hours to her grandmother’s house, but he followed her and then assaulted her. She found employment performing childcare in a neighboring town, but Garcia showed up at her work and accused her of infidelity until she ...
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