Marin-Portillo v. Lynch ( 2016 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 14-2138
JORGE MARIO MARÍN-PORTILLO,
Petitioner,
v.
LORETTA E. LYNCH,
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES,
Respondent.
PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF
THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS
Before
Torruella, Kayatta, and Barron,
Circuit Judges.
Claudia Gregoire and Mills & Born LLP, on brief for
petitioner.
David Schor, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration
Litigation, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice,
Benjamin C. Mizer, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General,
Civil Division, and Emily Anne Radford, Assistant Director, on
brief for respondent.
August 23, 2016
TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge. Jorge Mario Marín-Portillo
("Marín") petitions this court for review of an order from the
Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") affirming the Immigration
Judge's ("IJ") denial of his request for asylum, withholding of
removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture
("CAT"). Finding Marín's arguments unpersuasive, we deny his
petition.
I.
We recount the facts as presented in the record, noting
that the IJ assumed that Marín was credible. Marín was born and
raised in Guatemala. In November 2006, when Marín was seventeen
years old, a police officer named Edgar Leonel Cuellar shot and
killed Marín's father after Marín's father declined to lend him
money. Cuellar believed Marín's father was wealthy and had
previously borrowed money from him.
Cuellar was convicted of robbery and battery, but not
murder, and incarcerated for three years. 1 While Cuellar was
incarcerated, Marín's mother received five to six phone calls
telling her that, upon his release, Cuellar would kill her as well
1 Cuellar's exact sentence is not clear from the record. Marín
testified that Cuellar had received a five-year sentence, but that
people typically serve only half of their sentence in Guatemala.
Nonetheless, Marín stated that Cuellar was released in November
2011 or February 2012, which would correspond with a five-year
sentence.
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as Marín, Marín's brother, and Marín's uncle as retaliation for
pressing charges against him. In addition, Cuellar had family
members of another person in jail tell Marín and members of his
family in person that Cuellar would kill them.
Based on these threats, Marín left Guatemala in February
2011 and entered the United States that March without inspection.
After Marín left, Cuellar was released. Marín's family, including
his mother, uncle, two sisters, and two brothers, remain in
Guatemala and have not been harmed.2
In May 2011, the Government initiated removal
proceedings against Marín for entering the United States without
a valid entry document pursuant to Immigration and Nationality Act
("INA") section 212(a)(7)(A)(i)(I), 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)
(I). Marín conceded removability and subsequently applied for
asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under CAT on the
grounds that Cuellar's threats constituted persecution based on
the social group of his family and demonstrated the likelihood
that Marín would be tortured or killed if he returned to Guatemala.
An IJ denied Marín's application and Marín sought review before
2 Marín's older brother, who was also a target of Cuellar's
threats, did seek work outside of Guatemala because he feared
Cuellar would kill him. Nonetheless, Marín's older brother
returned to Guatemala occasionally and was not harmed.
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the BIA. The BIA affirmed, adopting some, but not all, of the
IJ's reasoning. This timely petition followed.
II.
When the BIA incorporates portions of the IJ's opinion
and also supplies its own analysis, we review the decisions
together. Dimova v. Holder, 783 F.3d 30, 35 (1st Cir. 2015). We
review questions of fact under the deferential "substantial
evidence" standard, and we "will affirm unless 'any reasonable
adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.'"
Tobón-Marín v. Mukasey, 512 F.3d 28, 30 (1st Cir. 2008) (quoting
8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B)). Marín does not make any arguments
regarding the BIA's disposition of his CAT claim. We therefore
view that claim as abandoned and review only his asylum and
withholding of removal claims. See Rotinsulu v. Mukasey, 515 F.3d
68, 71 (1st Cir. 2008).
An asylum applicant bears the burden of proving he is a
refugee. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(A); 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(a). As
defined in INA section 101(a)(42)(A), a refugee is someone "who is
unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to
avail himself or herself of the protection of, [his or her native
country] because of persecution or a well-founded fear of
persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership
in a particular social group, or political opinion." 8 U.S.C.
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§ 1101(a)(42)(A). "The statute contemplates two approaches which
petitioners might pursue to satisfy their burden of proof."
Tobón-Marín, 512 F.3d at 31. First, petitioners may prove that
"they have suffered from past persecution on account of one or
more of the five grounds enumerated in § 1101(a)(42)(A), which
proof would generate a rebuttable presumption that their fear of
future persecution is well-founded." Butt v. Keisler, 506 F.3d
86, 90 (1st Cir. 2007) (citation omitted). Second, petitioners
may show that "their fear of future persecution is well founded,
viz., that the record evidence demonstrates that they genuinely
harbor such a fear, and that it is objectively reasonable." Id.
(citation omitted). Marín has failed to establish either.3
A. Past Persecution
"[E]stablishing past persecution is a daunting task."
Butt, 506 F.3d at 90 (alteration in original) (quoting Alibeaj v.
Gonzales, 469 F.3d 188, 191 (1st Cir. 2006)). "To qualify as
persecution, a person's experience must rise above unpleasantness,
harassment, and even basic suffering." Nelson v. INS, 232 F.3d
258, 263 (1st Cir. 2000). In light of this standard, the IJ
concluded (and the BIA agreed) that the threats against Marín did
3 Because "[t]he standard for a grant of asylum is easier to meet
than that for nonrefoulment (withholding of deportation)," we need
not address the latter claim separately. See Aguilar-Solís v.
INS, 168 F.3d 565, 569 n.3 (1st Cir. 1999).
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not rise to the level of persecution. We need not address that
basis for the BIA's holding, however, because even if we assume
that the threats against Marín did constitute persecution, the
BIA's reasonable conclusion that the threats were not motivated by
an enumerated statutory ground for relief, but instead by a
personal dispute, is dispositive of Marín's claim of past
persecution. See Sompotan v. Mukasey, 533 F.3d 63, 71 (1st Cir.
2008) ("Events that stem from personal disputes are generally not
enough to show the required nexus.").
We have previously viewed disputes motivated by revenge
as personal in nature. See Costa v. Holder, 733 F.3d 13, 17 (1st
Cir. 2013) (stating "former police officers [who] were targeted
for persecution because of the fact of having served as police
officers" could conceivably claim persecution based on a social
group but "a former police officer [who was] singled out for
reprisal, not because of his status as a former police officer,
but because of his role in disrupting particular criminal activity"
could not (quoting Matter of C–A–, 23 I. & N. Dec. 951, 958–59
(BIA 2006))). Here, Marín submitted a declaration stating that
Cuellar and his fellow officers were angry at Marín and his family
for pressing charges. And at his hearing, when asked why Cuellar
wanted to kill him, Marín responded, "I don't know. Maybe
vengeance? . . . Or, I don't know, maybe he thought that we would
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come after him because of the death of my father. I really don't
know." Thus, the record adequately supports the IJ's finding ––
which the BIA accepted –– that the threats against Marín stemmed
not from Marín's kinship ties per se, but rather from what Marín
did and Cuellar's desire in response either to "seek retaliation
against [Marín]" or to "seek to stop [Marín] because [Cuellar]
believes that [Marín's] family may come after him." The mere fact
that Cuellar exclusively targeted members of Marín's family does
not, as Marín argues, mean that "the only logical inference" is
that kinship ties, rather than the desire for retaliation or
deterrence, prompted Cuellar's threats.
We additionally reject Marín's claim that the BIA
"[c]onflat[ed] the motive for the underlying murder of . . .
Mar[í]n-Portillo's father -- a personal dispute -- with the motive
for subsequent harm to his family members." As noted above, the
IJ identified two motives for Cuellar's threats, neither of which
directly pertained to the underlying monetary dispute that
prompted Cuellar to kill Marín's father. Therefore, when the BIA
affirmed the IJ's finding that "Cuellar appears to be motivated by
a personal dispute," there is no reason to doubt that the BIA was
referring to the "personal dispute" that the IJ identified --
namely, Cuellar's desire to seek vengeance against Marín for
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pressing charges and his desire to prevent Marín from further
avenging the murder.
We also reject Marín's contention that our decision in
Aldana-Ramos v. Holder, 757 F.3d 9 (1st Cir. 2014), mandates
reversal of the BIA's decision. In that case, we reversed the BIA
for ignoring the petitioners' argument that, although their
persecutors killed the petitioners' father because he was "a
wealthy person," the petitioners were targeted, not because of
their wealth, but "on account" of their relationship to their
father. Id. at 18. We agree with Marín that under Aldana-Ramos,
it would be error if the BIA and IJ conflated Cuellar's motive for
killing Marín's father with Cuellar's motive for subsequently
threatening Marín and his family. But, as stated above, we find
no such error in the BIA's analysis.4 Aldana-Ramos, therefore,
does little to help Marín's case.
4 We acknowledge Marín's argument that our jurisprudence about
when an asylum applicant is persecuted "on account of" membership
in a family unit is not entirely clear. Marín alleges that
allowing the BIA's decision to stand would "effectively swallow[]
the rule that family membership is a protected social group,
because victims of persecution on account of family membership are
regularly -- and perhaps invariably -- targeted, whether for
retribution or otherwise, because of the actions of another member
of their family." We do not intend for this opinion to shed light
on the question of whether petitioners may claim persecution on
account of family membership when they are targeted as retaliation
for the actions of another family member. Marín's case does not
raise this question and absent a clear misapplication of law or
factual error by the BIA, we do not believe this case is the
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Because we find that Cuellar's threats were not motived
by a ground enumerated in § 1101(a)(42)(A), we need not reach
Marín's argument that the BIA erred by failing to take his age
into account when determining whether the threats against him were
sufficiently severe to constitute persecution. We affirm only the
BIA's finding that there was a lack of nexus between Cuellar's
threats and Marín's membership in a protected social group.
B. Well-Founded Fear of Future Persecution5
Our nexus analysis is equally applicable to Marín's
future persecution claim. Because Marín fails to establish a
nexus between his fear of future persecution and a statutorily
protected ground, we reject this claim as well.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, Marín's petition for review
is denied.
Denied.
appropriate vehicle to clear up this area of the law.
5 Marín argues that the BIA never addressed whether he had a well-
founded fear of future persecution. We disagree with Marín's
contention because the BIA's nexus analysis resolves both his past
and future persecution claims.
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