NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS AUG 30 2018 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT SANTOS DEL CARMEN LOPEZ- No. 14-72270 VALIENTE, Agency No. A200-625-232 Petitioner, v. MEMORANDUM* JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS III, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted July 10, 2018 Pasadena, California Before: BERZON and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and CASTEL,** District Judge. Santos del Carmen Lopez-Valiente, a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) denying her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable P. Kevin Castel, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation. the United Nations Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we remand for consideration of the agency’s jurisdiction in the first instance and, if it determines it properly exercised its jurisdiction, for further proceedings consistent with this memorandum disposition. 1. Asylum. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s denial of Lopez’s asylum claim. In the alternative, the BIA assumed that Lopez was credible but found that she failed to establish an adequate nexus between her well-founded fear of persecution and a protected ground.1 See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(42)(A), 1158(b)(1)(B)(i). To establish the requisite nexus, asylum applicants must show that “one central reason” for their persecution was a protected ground. Bringas- Rodriguez v. Sessions, 850 F.3d 1051, 1062 (9th Cir. 2017) (en banc) (quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i)). Lopez alleged that her membership in three particular social groups gave rise to her claim as the predicate protected grounds.2 However, Lopez presented evidence that a group of MS-13 gang members threatened, extorted, and attacked her only because “they ran things” at a university where she was a new student. There was no evidence suggesting that her attackers at school knew or suspected that she was a member of a particular social group. As to the 1 Because our decisions rest on the agency’s alternative holdings on the merits of each claim, we need not reach the agency’s adverse credibility determination. 2 The BIA declined to decide whether Lopez’s proposed groups satisfied the requirements of a particular social group, instead holding that she failed to establish a nexus assuming they were proper groups. 2 other incidents underlying Lopez’s claim, substantial evidence supports the BIA’s conclusion that the harassment was motivated by one stalker’s lecherous interest in Lopez and the other perpetrator’s desire for money. Neither the approximate two- month timeframe in which the incidents occurred nor general evidence of crimes towards women in El Salvador compels the contrary conclusion that one central reason for the harm to Lopez was her membership in any of the particular social groups she describes. Cf. Borja v. I.N.S., 175 F.3d 732, ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals