Domingo Velasquez-Domingo v. Eric H. Holder, Jr.

326 F. App'x 409

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
• Decided: June 9, 2009
• Docket: 08-1923
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

Guatemalan citizen Domingo Velasquez-Domingo petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) that affirmed an immigration judge’s (IJ’s) denial of his application for asylum and withholding of removal. 2 Hav ing carefully reviewed the record, we deny the petition. See Eta-Ndu v. Gonzales, 411 F.3d 977, 982-83 (8th Cir.2005) (standard of review).

We conclude that substantial evidence supports the IJ’s conclusion that Velasquez-Domingo did not establish past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of a protected ground. See Lengkong v. Gonzales, 478 F.3d 859, 863 (8th Cir.2007) (incidents of random isolated violence did not compel finding of persecution); Gomez v. Gonzales, 425 F.3d 543, 545-47 (8th Cir.2005) (record must compel finding that protected ground motivated persecutors’ actions); Alyas v. Gonzales, 419 F.3d 756, 760-61 (8th Cir.2005) (to establish persecution when harm was inflicted by private individual, asylum applicant must show that government was unwilling or unable to protect him). Velasquez-Domingo’s claim for withholding of removal — which carries a more rigorous burden of proof — necessarily fails as well. See Makatengkeng v. Gonzales, 495 F.3d 876, 885 (8th Cir.2007).

Accordingly, we deny the petition.

2 . Velasquez-Domingo also purports to challenge the IJ’s denial of relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), but he did not raise a CAT claim below, and he does not now assert that the IJ erred by not considering his asylum application as raising a CAT claim, see Halabi v. Ashcroft, 316 F.3d 807, 808 (8th Cir.2003) (per curiam) (issues not raised in appeal brief are waived).