Romero Ventura v. Garland

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: December 12, 2024
• Docket: 24-13
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 12 2024 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MARIA ROMALIA ROMERO No. 24-13 VENTURA; WILSON HUMBERTO Agency Nos. RAMIREZ ROMERO; DANY ESAU A220-939-736 RAMIREZ ROMERO, A220-939-737 A220-939-738 Petitioners,

v. MEMORANDUM*

MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General,

Respondent.

On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals

Submitted December 5, 2024** San Francisco, California

Before: BRESS and FORREST, Circuit Judges, and OHTA, District Judge.***

Maria Romalia Romero-Ventura and her two children petition for review of

* 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 Jinsook Ohta, United States District Judge for the Southern District of California, sitting by designation. the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) decision dismissing their appeal of the

immigration judge’s (IJ) denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under

the Convention Against Torture (CAT). 1 We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C.

§ 1252, and we deny the petition.

“Where, as here, the BIA cites [In re Burbano, 20 I. & N. Dec. 872 (BIA

1994)] and also provides its own review of the evidence and law, we review both the

IJ’s and the BIA’s decisions.” Ali v. Holder, 637 F.3d 1025, 1028 (9th Cir. 2011).

We review factual findings for substantial evidence and legal conclusions de novo.

Plancarte Sauceda v. Garland, 23 F.4th 824, 831 (9th Cir. 2022). Under the

substantial evidence standard, we will reverse a factual finding only if “any

reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary based on the

evidence in the record.” Bringas-Rodriguez v. Sessions, 850 F.3d 1051, 1059 (9th

Cir. 2017) (en banc) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).

1. Asylum and Withholding of Removal. Asylum applicants must

demonstrate “[past] persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of

race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political

opinion.” Singh v. Garland, 57 F.4th 643, 652 (9th Cir. 2023) (quoting Melkonian

1 Romero-Ventura’s two children are derivative beneficiaries of their mother’s asylum application, but they cannot assert derivative claims for withholding of removal or relief under the CAT. See Ali v. Ashcroft, 394 F.3d 780, 782 n.1 (9th Cir. 2005).

2 24-13 v. Ashcroft, 320 F.3d 1061, 1064 (9th Cir. 2003)).

Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s conclusion that Romero-Ventura

failed to establish past persecution. “We have been most likely to find persecution

where threats are repeated, specific and ‘combined with confrontation or other

mistreatment.’” Duran-Rodriguez v. Barr, 918 F.3d 1025, 1028 (9th Cir. 2019)

(quoting Lim v. INS, 224 F.3d 929, 936 (9th Cir. 2000)). While Romero-Ventura

testified credibly that armed gang members threatened her at her home, she was only

directly threatened once and was never physically harmed. The record does not

compel a finding of past persecution. See Villegas Sanchez v. Garland, 990 F.3d

1173, 1179 (9th Cir. 2021) (“Mere threats, without more, do not necessarily compel

a finding of past persecution.”).

Substantial evidence also supports the BIA’s decision that Romero-Ventura

failed to establish a reasonable fear of persecution on account of a protected ground.

“For both asylum and withholding claims, a petitioner must prove a causal nexus

between one of her statutorily protected characteristics and either her past harm or

her objectively tenable fear of future harm.” Rodriguez-Zuniga v. Garland, 69 F.4th

1012, 1016 (9th Cir. 2023). Romero-Ventura asserted she was persecuted based on

her membership in three particular social groups: (1) Salvadoran women, (2)

immediate family members of landowners, and (3) disabled children and their

parents who care for them. The BIA did not address whether these groups are

3 24-13 cognizable, and instead concluded that the IJ “correctly found that [Romero-

Ventura] was targeted by the gangs for ‘financial gain’ and not because of her family

membership, gender, or child’s disability.” See Barajas-Romero v. Lynch, 846 F.3d

351, 360 (9th Cir. 2017) (observing that where “there was no nexus at all,” we draw

“no distinction between the ‘one central reason’ phrase in the asylum statute and the

‘a reason’ phrase in the withholding statute”); Baballah v. Ashcroft, 367 F.3d 1067,

1075 n.7 (9th Cir. 2004) (explaining that relief is precluded when persecution is

“solely on account of an economic motive”). Substantial evidence in the record

supports this conclusion.

2. CAT Claim. We also deny the petition for review as to CAT relief

because Romero-Ventura failed to show that it is “more likely than not that . . . she

would be tortured if removed” to El Salvador. Davila v. Barr, 968 F.3d 1136, 1144

(9th Cir. 2020) (quoting 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c)(2)). Romero-Ventura argues that the

agency disregarded the psychological harm that she suffered because of the gang’s

threats. But both the IJ and BIA considered the gang threats made to Romero-

Ventura and her family and concluded that the threats did not constitute past torture.

“Torture is ‘more severe than persecution.’” Id. at 1144 (quoting Guo v. Sessions,

897 F.3d 1208, 1217 (9th Cir. 2018)). Given that Romero-Ventura was never

physically harmed in El Salvador and was never threatened in Izalco, where her

parents and sister have remained safely, the record does not compel the conclusion

4 24-13 that Romero-Ventura will more likely than not be tortured if she is removed to El

Salvador. See Aguilar Fermin v. Barr, 958 F.3d 887, 889–90, 893 (9th Cir. 2020)

(upholding denial of CAT relief when the petitioner received prior death threats but

was never physically harmed in Mexico, was never threatened in Mexico City, and

“has family members who continue to live in Mexico City without issue”).

PETITION DENIED.

5 24-13