NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JAN 25 2018 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UDON LERTJANTHUK, No. 15-72426 16-70302 Petitioner, Agency No. A040-270-118 v. JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS III, Attorney MEMORANDUM* General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted January 9, 2018 Pasadena, California Before: M. SMITH and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges, and RAKOFF,** District Judge. Udon Lertjanthuk appeals from the Board of Immigration Appeal’s (“BIA”) dismissal of his appeal of an Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) decision denying his applications for withholding of removal and protection under the Convention * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Jed S. Rakoff, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation. Against Torture (“CAT”) and finding him to be competent to proceed pro se. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1), and we deny Lertjanthuk’s petition for review. 1. “To qualify for withholding of removal, an applicant must show a ‘clear probability’ of future persecution . . . ‘on account of’ one of the statutorily enumerated grounds: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.” Garcia v. Holder, 749 F.3d 785, 791 (9th Cir. 2014) (first quoting Alvarez-Santos v. INS, 332 F.3d 1245, 1255 (9th Cir. 2003); and then quoting INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 480 (1992)). Lertjanthuk argues that the agency erred when it concluded that his past harm was not on account of an imputed political opinion or his family membership, but he fails to demonstrate any nexus between the past harm he suffered and the protected grounds he identifies. Our decision in Barajas-Romero v. Lynch, 846 F.3d 351 (9th Cir. 2017), does not require the agency to reconsider this issue, because here the IJ and BIA concluded that a protected ground was not a reason at all for the past persecution—not that it was one of many reasons. 2. To demonstrate eligibility for protection under CAT, an alien must show that “‘she is more likely than not to be tortured [upon return to her home country],’ either ‘by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.’” Avendano-Hernandez v. 2 Lynch, 800 F.3d 1072, 1078-79 (9th Cir. 2015) (first quoting 8 C.F.R. § 1208.17(a); and then quoting 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(1)). Substantial evidence supports the conclusion that Lertjanthuk “has not shown that he likely will be tortured, at the instigation or with the consent or acquiescence of an official of the Thai government.” Indeed, the previous events took place over 30 years ago, and there is no evidence in the record indicating that the village chief is still alive or living in the same village. 3. Lertjanthuk has also failed to show any error in the IJ’s process for determining that ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals