Case Information
*1 United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 11-2086
LUIS G. ESCOBAR,
Petitioner,
v. ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., ATTORNEY GENERAL,
Respondent. PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS
Before
Torruella, Boudin and Thompson,
Circuit Judges.
Carlos E. Estrada on brief for petitioner.
Shahrzad Baghai, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, Department of Justice, Stuart F. Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, and Terri J. Scadron, Assistant Director, Office of Immigration Litigation, on brief for respondent.
October 22, 2012
*2
BOUDIN, Circuit Judge. Luis Escobar, a citizen of Guatemala, seeks review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") denying his applications for asylum, statutory withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture. In June 1989 Escobar, then age 18, arrived in the United States. Four years later, he applied for asylum, asserting that he had fled his native country due to political persecution after Guatemalan police had accused him of being a "guerrilla sympathizer."
In March 2006, after the Department of Homeland Security began removal proceedings against him, Escobar offered a different version of his claim in an updated application and in testimony in the immigration court proceeding. Escobar now says that he left the country because he feared persecution by guerillas whose recruitment efforts he had twice resisted. He also described an incident in which guerrillas allegedly bombed a bus driven by his father, a second incident in which he and his mother witnessed guerrilla activity during a bus ride and a subsequent bus ride in which guerrillas robbed his mother.
On these premises, Escobar argued that he was the victim of past political persecution and that, if returned to Guatemala, he would also be subject to persecution on account of "membership in a particular social group," namely, "the particular social group of Guatemalan nationals repatriated from the United States." The *3 IJ denied relief, finding that Escobar was a "credible witness" but that the facts did not support his asylum application or other claims for relief. The BIA affirmed based on the IJ's decision and Escobar now petitions for review in this court.
This entails review of the IJ's rationale, since the BIA
accepted it without alteration. Seng v. Holder,
The two statutory bases for persecution invoked here are
"membership in a particular social group" and "political opinion."
INA § 101(a)(42)(A), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A); see also 8 C.F.R.
§ 1208.13(b)(1)-(2) (2012). Past persecution on a protected ground
gives rise to a "rebuttable presumption that a well-founded fear of
future persecution endures." Guerrero v. Holder,
The first occurred in May 1985 when Escobar was 14 or 15
years old and guerrillas came to his school to gather new recruits.
Escobar's updated application also asserts that in 1988 guerrillas
appeared while he was visiting his grandparents and threatened to
kill him if he refused to join their forces, although Escobar does
not mention this incident in his testimony. In neither case is
there any indication that the guerrillas targeted Escobar because
of his political opinions, real or imputed, so neither incident
suggests past persecution on a protected ground. See Tobon-Marin
v. Mukasey,
Nor do any of the bus incidents support an inference that Escobar or either parent was persecuted based on their political opinions. His father was driving a bus that was bombed by guerrillas in 1980, but nothing indicates that the guerrillas specifically targeted Escobar's father. He and his mother, while riding a public bus in 1988, merely witnessed a fight between guerrillas and the authorities. And on yet another bus ride in 1993, guerrillas robbed his mother and other passengers, but there is no suggestion that she was singled out.
Escobar's father and mother, like Escobar himself, appear
to have been victims of the "general harm attributable to the
widespread civil strife that plagued Guatemala during that time,"
but the record does not show that they were "persecuted on an
individual basis." Velasquez v. Ashcroft, 342 F.3d 55, 58 (1st
*5
Cir. 2003). Evidence of "widespread violence . . . affecting all
citizens" is not enough to establish persecution on a protected
ground. Maryam v. Gonzales,
Alternatively, Escobar asserts a "very reasonable possibility that he will be persecuted in Guatemala based upon his membership in the particular social group of Guatemalan nationals repatriated from the United States." His theory appears to be that Guatemalan gangs will assume that he amassed significant wealth during his two-decade-long stay in the United States and that he will be a target of extortion and other criminal activity as a result of his perceived wealth. He relies on "personal knowledge of people who have been harmed when they returned to Guatemala from the United States" and reports from the State Department and human *6 rights organizations confirming that violent crime in Guatemala is widespread.
We rejected such a legal theory in Sicaju-Diaz v. Holder,
Escobar argues that his "particular social group" of
repatriated Guatemalans is different from the group rejected in
Sicaju-Diaz because wealth is not an immutable characteristic
whereas Guatemalan nationals who have lived in the United States
and are thus perceived as wealthy "cannot change the fact that
they . . . lived in the United States." But being a target for
thieves on account of perceived wealth, whether the perception is
temporary or permanent, is merely a condition of living where crime
is rampant and poorly controlled. The poor, because of their
vulnerability, are also potential targets. Thus, Escobar's gloss
would make most inhabitants of crime-ridden countries members of a
social group thus defined. Sicaju-Diaz,
Statutory withholding of removal under INA § 241(b)(3), 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3), requires an even greater likelihood of persecution than asylum, Lobo, 684 F.3d at 19-20, so Escobar's request for statutory withholding necessarily fails. Nor is he eligible for relief under the Convention Against Torture, as Escobar has not established that there is any prospect that he will be "tortured" if returned to Guatemala. 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c)(2). There may be "credible reports of torture, abuse, and other mistreatment" by members of Guatemala's national civilian police, [1] but this is a far cry from showing that the individual seeking asylum is a likely target.
The petition for review is denied.
Notes
[1] U.S. Dep't of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2010 Human Rights Reports: Guatemala 6 (Apr. 8, 2011). The State Department country report for the following year makes no mention at all of government-sanctioned torture in Guatemala. See U.S. Dep't of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2011 Human Rights Reports: Guatemala (May 24, 2012).