United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________ No. 20-2415 ___________________________ Teresa De Jesus Padilla-Franco; Darlyn Yorleny Guillen-Padilla; Monica Ahimar Guillen-Padilla Petitioners v. Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General of the United States Respondents ____________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals ____________ Submitted: April 13, 2021 Filed: June 2, 2021 ____________ Before KELLY, GRASZ, and KOBES, Circuit Judges. ____________ KOBES, Circuit Judge. Teresa Padilla-Franco is a Honduran national who entered the United States with her children and applied for asylum and withholding of removal. Her requests were denied, and the Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed the Immigration Judge’s decision. We deny her petition for review. I. Before Padilla-Franco fled Honduras, her father made a land-swap deal with a man known as “Pinto.” But Pinto traded land he did not actually own. When Padilla-Franco’s father discovered the swindle, he refused to sign over the title documents to his own land and Pinto began threatening him. Pinto’s attention shifted to Padilla-Franco after her father was killed in Guatemala during a robbery. Pinto threatened Padilla-Franco, and she feared for her life after one of Pinto’s men tried to run her off the road and another came to her home with a gun and said he was there to kill her. Believing the threats were designed to coerce her into signing over the title, Padilla-Franco fled to her cousin’s home in Guatemala and then to the United States. Padilla-Franco was told that Pinto burned the land and was waiting for her to return to kill her. The Immigration Judge denied Padilla-Franco’s requests for asylum and withholding of removal. The IJ found that Padilla-Franco did not meet the requirement of showing past persecution because she was not physically harmed in Honduras, the attempt to run her off the road did not suffice, and the emotional harm she experienced did not meet the threshold established by law. The IJ also concluded that Padilla-Franco did not show a strong enough likelihood of future persecution and that she could return to Honduras. Finally, the IJ recognized that while Padilla- Franco’s family membership was a sufficiently particular social group, Padilla- Franco’s family identity was not a “central reason” why Pinto would do her harm, and so she did not show persecution based on a protected characteristic. Add. 18. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed, saying that the IJ’s factfinding was not clearly erroneous and that the IJ properly analyzed the legal issues. Padilla- Franco now petitions for review of the BIA’s decision. -2- II. “This court reviews the BIA’s decision as the final agency action, but to the extent the BIA adopts the findings of the IJ, this court reviews those findings as part of the final agency action.” R.K.N. v. Holder, 701 F.3d 535, 537 (8th Cir. 2012). “We review questions of law de novo, and we review the agency’s factual determinations under the substantial evidence standard, reversing only where a petitioner demonstrates that the evidence was so compelling that no …
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