No. 23-2097

LUIS EFRAIN VARGAS-SALAZAR; WILMA JEANETH VARGAS-LASSO; M.V.V.,

Petitioners,

v.

MERRICK B. GARLAND, United States Attorney General,

Respondent.

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

Before

Gelpí, Lynch, and Montecalvo, Circuit Judges.

Kevin P. MacMurray and MacMurray & Associates on brief for petitioner. Thankful T. Vanderstar, Senior Trial Attorney, Bryan M. Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant General, and Aimee J. Carmichael, Acting Assistant Director, Office of Immigration Litigation, U.S. Department of Justice, on brief for respondent.

October 17, 2024 LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Luis Efrain Vargas-Salazar and his derivative beneficiaries -- his wife Wilma Jeaneth Vargas-Lasso, and their son Maykel Eliab Vargas-Vargas -- natives of Ecuador, petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") order affirming the Immigration Judge's ("IJ") denial of their applications for asylum. Vargas-Salazar also petitions the denial of his application for withholding of removal. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1158(b)(1)(A), 1231(b)(3)(A).

The BIA upheld the IJ's denial of relief, finding, inter alia, that the petitioner failed to satisfy the requirements for asylum and withholding for removal on two grounds: (1) the petitioner had not shown harm rising to the level of past persecution and (2) also had not shown the required nexus between his asserted harm and particular social groups.

Because substantial evidence supports the BIA's finding that the petitioner failed to show harm rising to the level of past persecution and any well-founded fear of future persecution was not on account of a protected ground, that suffices to deny the petition for review.

I.

The petitioner, his wife, and son entered the United States without inspection on June 28, 2021, and were served with Notices to Appear on September 27, 2021, charging them with removability pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i). They

- 2 - conceded removability through counsel on March 3, 2022. On March 17, 2022, the petitioner1 filed an application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture ("CAT"), naming his wife and child as derivative beneficiaries. The IJ held a hearing on the application on May 25, 2023. The petitioner, represented by counsel, was the sole witness to testify.

The IJ found the following facts, accepting the petitioner's testimony as credible. Around 2020, the petitioner joined or formed a taxi company with his cousin and about 30 coworkers in Quito, Ecuador. Sometime in 2020, five members of a gang called "the Teachers" (in English) arrived at the company with pistols and ordered Vargas-Salazar's manager to pay three thousand dollars or risk losing "the car or [his] life or something like that." The manager and the company decided to pay the sum and the extortion attempts temporarily stopped.

Some time passed before members of the same gang made a second extortion attempt. This time, the extortion attempt was accompanied by death threats to the petitioner and his family and

1 We refer to Vargas-Salazar as the "petitioner." Vargas-Lasso and Vargas-Vargas are not eligible for withholding of removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture because these forms of relief do not carry derivative benefits and they did not file separate applications. See Mari