Mario A. Recinos v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
Mario A. Recinos
Petitioner,
v.
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,
Respondent.
No. 23-81
Agency No. A094-461-190
MEMORANDUM*
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Submitted on February 14, 2024**
Pasadena, California
Before: TALLMAN, CALLAHAN, Circuit Judges, and LASNIK,*** District
Judge.
Mario Recinos, a native and citizen of El Salvador, seeks review of the Board
of Immigration Appeals’ decision to dismiss his appeal from the Immigration
* 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 Robert S. Lasnik, United States District Judge for the
Western District of Washington, sitting by designation.
FILED
FEB 21 2024
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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Judge’s order denying his application for withholding of removal and relief under
Article III of the United Nations Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). On appeal,
Recinos argues that he is entitled to relief based on a single incident in 1998 where
the Mara Salvatrucha (“M.S.”) gang tried to recruit him, and when he refused,
members of the gang “beat” his friend—whose name Recinos cannot remember—
to “send him a message.” Recinos offers no additional incidents of harm, and
otherwise argues that prevalent gang violence in El Salvador entitles him to relief.
Because we write primarily for the parties who are familiar with the facts, we do not
recount them here. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we deny the
petition.
We review the Board’s determination that a petitioner failed to establish
eligibility for withholding of removal or protection under the CAT for substantial
evidence. Sharma v. Garland, 9 F.4th 1052, 1060, 1066–67 (9th Cir. 2021).
Under that standard, “we uphold the agency’s determinations unless, based on the
evidence, ‘any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the
contrary.’” Hermosillo v. Garland, 80 F.4th 1127, 1131 (9th Cir. 2023) (quoting
Ai Jun Zhi v. Holder, 751 F.3d 1088, 1091 (9th Cir. 2014)).
The 1998 incident cannot support a finding of past or future persecution for
several reasons. First, isolated incidents that do not cause “significant physical
harm” to the petitioner, as is the case here, will often fail to rise to the level of

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persecution. See e.g., Sharma, 9 F.4th at 1061–62 (collecting cases). Second, even
if we were to consider the harm to Recinos’s friend as evidence of persecution, he
fails to establish that the harm was part of “a pattern of persecution closely tied to”
him. Sharma, 9 F.4th at 1062 (quoting Wakkary v. Holder, 558 F.3d 1049, 1060
(9th Cir. 2009)). Third, to the extent Recinos claims the threats by the M.S. gang
entitles him to relief, “threats, without more, do not necessarily compel a finding of
past persecution.” Id. at 1062 (quoting Villegas Sanchez v. Garland, 990 F.3d
1173, 1179 (9th Cir. 2021)). Fourth, Recinos admits he has never been physically
harmed or approached by anyone from the M.S. gang since 1998, even though he
lived in El Salvador for two years after the incident. Thus, any fear of returning to
El Salvador is unreasonable and fails to establish a “clear probability” of future
persecution. Sharma, 9 F.4th at 1066. Substantial evidence supports the Board’s
decision to deny Recinos’s application for withholding of removal.
Recinos alleges that widespread government corruption and high crime rates
qualify him for protection under CAT. We disagree. To qualify for protection
under the CAT, an applicant “must show that it is ‘more likely than not’ that a
government official or person acting in an official capacity would torture him or
aid or acquiesce in his torture by others.” Wakkary, 558 F.3d at 1067–68 (quoting
Kamalthas v. INS, 251 F.3d 1279, 1283 (9th Cir. 2001)). Our case law is clear on
two points: first, absent a showing that the petitioner has “reason to think that he is

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likely to be tortured by the actors he fears,” general allegations of torture occurring
in the country of deportation are insufficient for relief, Wakkary, 558 F.3d at 1068;
second, a government’s failed efforts to control gang-related crime do not
constitute acquiescence as required by the CAT. Andrade-Garcia v. Lynch, 828
F.3d 829, 836 (9th Cir. 2016). Recinos’s allegations do not qualify him for
protection, and based on the scant evidence on the record, we are not compelled to
reach a different conclusion than the Board’s.
PETITION DENIED.

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