No. 23-1890

FIDEL ANGEL LOPEZ-QUINTEROS; EVELYN DE LOS ANGELES POLANCO-ORTIZ; A.A.L.P.,

Petitioners,

v.

MERRICK B. GARLAND,

Attorney General,

Respondent.

PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS

Before

Barron, Chief Judge, Selya and Kayatta, Circuit Judges.

Kristian R. Meyer, with whom Kevin P. MacMurray and MacMurray & Associates were on brief, for petitioners.

Kristen H. Blosser, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, with whom Brian Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, and Anthony P. Nicastro, Assistant Director, Office of Immigration Litigation, were on brief, for respondent.

December 13, 2024 BARRON, Chief Judge. Fidel Angel Lopez Quinteros ("Lopez"), Evelyn de Los Angeles Polanco Ortiz ("Polanco"), and A.A.L.P. are natives and citizens of El Salvador. They petition for review of the decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") that denied their respective claims for asylum. We deny the petition in part, grant it in part, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

In 2021, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued Notices to Appear to the petitioners charging them as subject to removal for being present in the United States without having been admitted or paroled. The petitioners admitted to the factual allegations in the Notices to Appear and conceded that they were removable as charged.

Lopez and Polanco then filed applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture ("CAT"). A.A.L.P., being a minor, was listed as a derivative beneficiary in connection with Lopez's application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT.

The petition for review challenges only the agency's denial of the applications for asylum. To be eligible for asylum, see 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(A), applicants must show that they are "unable or unwilling to avail [themselves] of the protection of" any country of their nationality "because of persecution or a

- 3 - well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion," id. § 1101(a)(42)(A). A "particular social group" is a "group of persons sharing a common, immutable characteristic that makes the group socially visible and sufficiently particular." Mendez-Barrera v. Holder, 602 F.3d 21, 25 (1st Cir. 2010).

Asylum is "proper in mixed-motive cases even where one motive [for the mistreatment that grounds the alleged persecution] would not be the basis for asylum, so long as one of the statutory protected grounds is 'at least one central reason' for the persecution." Aldana-Ramos v. Holder, 757 F.3d 9, 18 (1st Cir. 2014) (quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i)). Moreover, the alleged persecution not only must be causally connected to a statutorily enumerated ground but also must be "the direct result of government action, government-supported action, or government's unwillingness or inability to control private conduct." Nikijuluw v. Gonzales, 427 F.3d 115, 121 (1st Cir. 2005).

A showing of past persecution "creates a rebuttable presumption of a well-founded fear of future persecution." Paiz-Morales v. Lynch, 795 F.3d 238, 243 (1st Cir. 2015) (quoting Singh v. Holder, 750 F.3d 84, 86 (1st Cir. 2014)). We have held that "credible death threats"