NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 11 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT SONIA MARIA RECANOJ-DE LEON, No. 18-73238 Petitioner, Agency No. A205-405-121 v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted December 8, 2020** San Francisco, California Before: MURGUIA and CHRISTEN, Circuit Judges, and SESSIONS,*** District Judge. * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable William K. Sessions III, United States District Judge for the District of Vermont, sitting by designation. Sonia Recanoj de Leon (Petitioner), a native and citizen of Guatemala, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) order dismissing her appeal of an Immigration Judge’s (IJ) order denying her application for withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). We review the agency’s factual findings for substantial evidence. Zehatye v. Gonzales, 453 F.3d 1182, 1184-85 (9th Cir. 2006). We deny the petition for review. To be entitled to withholding of removal, a petitioner must demonstrate her “life or freedom” would be threatened in her home country because of, inter alia, “membership in a particular social group.” 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A). The petitioner can meet this burden by (1) establishing a fear of future persecution based on past persecution or (2) independently establishing “it is more likely than not that [she] would be persecuted” on the basis of particular social group membership. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(b). In this case, substantial evidence supports the agency’s finding that Petitioner failed to establish a nexus between past persecution or likely future persecution and her membership in a particular social group. See Ayala v. Holder, 640 F.3d 1095, 1097 (9th Cir. 2011) (noting that a petitioner “must establish that any persecution was or will be on account of his membership in such group”). Petitioner testified that gang members extorted and beat her father for money, but 2 failed to establish that she herself was in danger on account of membership in her father’s family. See, e.g., Zetino v. Holder, 622 F.3d 1007, 1016 (9th Cir. 2010) (an applicant’s “desire to be free from harassment by criminals motivated by theft or random violence by gang members bears no nexus to a protected ground”). Furthermore, the IJ determined that there was insufficient evidence of harm to Petitioner’s brother on the basis of his family membership. See Santos-Lemus v. Mukasey, 542 F.3d 738, 743-44 (9th Cir. 2008) (finding lack of a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of family membership where another family member had remained unharmed in petitioner’s native country), abrogated on other grounds by Henriquez-Rivas v. Holder, 707 F.3d 1081 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc). With respect to Petitioner’s status as a single woman or mother in ...
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