United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 19-1965 NOE SOSA MOLINA, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS Before Lynch, Stahl, and Kayatta, Circuit Judges. Stanley H. Cooper on brief for petitioner. Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, Leslie McKay, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, and Corey L. Farrell, Attorney, United States Department of Justice, Civil Division, Office of Immigration Litigation, on brief for respondent. March 9, 2020 STAHL, Circuit Judge. Noe Sosa Molina ("Molina"), 1 a native and citizen of Guatemala who illegally entered the United States in 2002 and was placed in removal proceedings in 2005, applied for asylum and withholding of removal on the grounds that he feared gang violence upon his return to Guatemala. An Immigration Judge ("IJ") denied Molina's applications in 2007, and the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") denied his appeal in 2008. In 2018, Molina moved to reopen his case on the grounds that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel in the 2007 proceedings and that country conditions in Guatemala had changed substantially since his merits hearing. The BIA denied the motion to reopen, finding it was not timely and was not subject to equitable tolling because Molina had not demonstrated due diligence in the ten years between his final removal order and his motion to reopen. The BIA also determined that Molina had not demonstrated that conditions in Guatemala had changed substantially since 2007. Molina now petitions this court for review of the BIA's denial. After careful consideration of Molina's claims and the BIA's order, we deny the petition for review. 1While the cover of Molina's brief and several documents in the record refer to the petitioner as "Noe Sasa Molina," we refer to him as "Noe Sosa Molina" in accordance with the weight of record evidence, including the respondent's birth certificate, marriage certificate, sworn declarations, and other filings submitted in his immigration proceedings. - 2 - I. Factual Background and Procedural History In 2002, Molina entered the United States without inspection. In 2005, the Department of Homeland Security issued Molina a Notice to Appear and placed him in removal proceedings. Sometime in 2005, after he received the Notice to Appear, Molina retained Susan Mills as his attorney. In 2006, Molina conceded removability. Later in 2006, Molina applied for asylum and withholding of removal, requesting voluntary departure in the alternative. Molina stated that he had come to the United States because he "wanted to help [his] mother," but that after he left Guatemala, gang members had broken into his mother's home in an attempt to rob her, as they believed she had money. He also claimed that gang members had killed a neighbor whose husband had spent time in the United States after she fought back during an attempted robbery. As Molina stated in his application, he feared "returning to Guatemala because of the rising power of these gangs, who especially ...
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