NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 22a0029n.06 No. 21-3227 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Jan 18, 2022 ) SOFONIAS OTTONIEL TOMAS-MORALES, DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk ) Petitioner, ) ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW v. ) FROM THE UNITED STATES ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, ) APPEALS Respondent. ) ) Before: SUHRHEINRICH, STRANCH, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges. MURPHY, Circuit Judge. Soon after Sofonias Ottoniel Tomas-Morales entered the United States, immigration authorities issued him a notice to appear at proceedings to determine whether to remove him to Guatemala. Like the “notices to appear” issued to many other immigrants, this notice did not include some statutorily required information: the date and location of the removal proceedings. And like many immigrants, Tomas-Morales sought asylum in the United States because of a fear of gang harassment in his home country. He now argues that the defect in his notice to appear deprived the Board of Immigration Appeals of the jurisdiction necessary to order him removed. He further argues that the Board wrongly rejected his claim that young males subject to gang recruitment and harassment could make up a cognizable “particular social group” entitled to protection under the immigration laws. Yet the defect in his notice to appear did not deprive the Board of the authority to issue the removal order. And the Board’s rejection of Tomas- No. 21-3227, Tomas-Morales v. Garland Morales’s proposed “particular social group” comports with our caselaw rejecting similarly defined groups tied to gang recruitment. We thus deny his petition for review. I Tomas-Morales was born and raised in Guatemala. He lived with his grandparents as a child, but they passed away while he was still in school. Although his parents and several siblings also lived in Guatemala, he lost his support network once his grandparents died. Without their guidance, he could not continue with his education. Many teachers and students at his school did not take education seriously, as evidenced by their regular consumption of alcohol during the school day. When he was still a child, therefore, Tomas-Morales dropped out of school to take a job in Guatemala City. To get to work, he had to ride the bus each day. But criminal elements on the bus would threaten to beat or murder commuters like Tomas-Morales if they did not give up their valuables. Tomas-Morales claimed that he could not report these threats to the police because the small town where he lived lacked a police department. A severe gang problem also plagues Guatemala. Tomas-Morales’s family has not been immune to it. His brother tried to open a business in their hometown, but a gang left a note on the door threatening to kill him if he did not turn over the business’s earnings. His brother decided to close the business. And while gangs have never threatened Tomas-Morales personally, he still fears gang recruitment. Gangs regularly attempt to coerce young men like him to join on threat of violence. Tomas-Morales thus opted …
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