Edgardo Condes Arcolas Jr. v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
EDGARDO CONDES ARCOLAS JR.,
Petitioner,
v.
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,
Respondent.
No. 23-304
Agency No.
A200-253-984
MEMORANDUM*
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Submitted March 6, 2024**
Pasadena, California
Before: CLIFTON, H.A. THOMAS, and DESAI, Circuit Judges.
Edgardo Condes Arcolas Jr. is a citizen of the Philippines. He petitions for
review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirming a
decision by an Immigration Judge (IJ) denying his applications for asylum,
* 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).
FILED
MAR 8 2024
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture
(CAT). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We deny the petition.
“Where the BIA conducts its own review of the evidence and law, rather
than adopting the IJ’s decision, our review is limited to the BIA’s decision, except
to the extent the IJ’s opinion is expressly adopted.” Flores Molina v. Garland, 37
F.4th 626, 632 (9th Cir. 2022) (quoting Rodriguez v. Holder, 683 F.3d 1164, 1169
(9th Cir. 2012)). “We review purely legal questions de novo, and the agency’s
factual findings for substantial evidence.” Perez-Portillo v. Garland, 56 F.4th 788,
792 (9th Cir. 2022) (citing Najmabadi v. Holder, 597 F.3d 983, 986 (9th Cir.
2010)). Under this “highly deferential” standard, the agency’s factual findings are
“conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to
the contrary.” Salguero Sosa v. Garland, 55 F.4th 1213, 1217–18 (9th Cir. 2022)
(quoting Nasrallah v. Barr, 140 S. Ct. 1683, 1692 (2020)); 8 U.S.C.
§ 1252(b)(4)(B).
1. Arcolas argues that he suffered past persecution in the Philippines at the
hands of the New People’s Army (NPA) when members of the NPA extorted
protection money from his father, beat his brother for refusing to pay protection
money, threatened Arcolas after he confronted the NPA member who beat his
brother, and then attempted to kidnap his niece after he had left for the United
States. The single vague threat that Arcolas received—after a violent confrontation

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that Arcolas initiated—was not accompanied by the kind of specificity or repeated,
aggressive encounters that normally compel a finding of past persecution, and we
do not find that such a conclusion is compelled here. See Duran-Rodriguez v. Barr,
918 F.3d 1025, 1028 (9th Cir. 2019) (holding that while “death threats alone can
constitute persecution,” they do so “in only a small category of cases, and only
when the threats are so menacing as to cause significant actual suffering or harm”
(first quoting Navas v. INS, 217 F.3d 646, 658 (9th Cir. 2000), then quoting Lim v.
INS, 224 F.3d 929, 936 (9th Cir. 2000))).
Similarly, the NPA’s extortion of Arcolas’s relatives does not compel a
finding of past persecution. “‘[A]lthough harm to a petitioner’s close relatives . . .
may contribute to a successful showing of past persecution,’ it must be ‘part of a
pattern of persecution closely tied to [the petitioner] himself.’” Sharma v. Garland,
9 F.4th 1052, 1062 (9th Cir. 2021) (quoting Wakkary v. Holder, 558 F.3d 1049,
1060 (9th Cir. 2009)). Arcolas, however, points to no harm he suffered himself,
other than a single non-specific death threat. And the attempted kidnapping of
Arcolas’s niece does not show that Arcolas was persecuted, because he “was not in
the country at the time.” Tamang v. Holder, 598 F.3d 1083, 1092 (9th Cir. 2010).
2. Arcolas fears that the NPA will persecute him upon his return to the
Philippines because he would be perceived as a wealthy foreign national. But
nothing in Arcolas’s testimony suggests that the NPA would target him for this

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reason. Instead, Arcolas expressed fear that the NPA would target him either for
protection money or because he is “on their list.” These financial and retaliatory
motives, however, do not give rise to a claim for asylum or withholding of
removal. See Rodriguez-Zuniga v. Garland, 69 F.4th 1012, 1019–20 (9th Cir.
2023). The country conditions evidence to which Arcolas points fails to support his
claim for similar reasons, as it also suggests that militant groups target foreign
nationals due to financial motives.
3. Arcolas claims that terrorist groups such as ISIS might persecute him
upon his return to the Philippines because he is Christian. Although Arcolas
introduced evidence of incidents in which ISIS attacked churches, this general
evidence of religiously motivated extremism does not show that Arcolas faces a
particularized risk of harm. See Wakkary, 558 F.3d at 1055, 1060–62; Sarkar v.
Garland, 39 F.4th 611, 623 (9th Cir. 2022).
4. Arcolas further claims that the government of the Philippines might
persecute him because he spent time in the United States, and because the
government might suspect he uses or deals drugs. We have previously rejected,
however, a speculative argument that a person might face persecution in the
Philippines because someone “could report his past drug use to the government.”
Silva v. Garland, 993 F.3d 705, 719 (9th Cir. 2021). And here, Arcolas does not
contend that he has ever used drugs, and he introduces no evidence that the

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government of the Philippines would target him for any other reason.
5. “To qualify for CAT protection, a petitioner must show it is ‘more likely
than not he or she would be tortured if removed to the proposed country of
removal.’” Sharma, 9 F.4th at 1067 (quoting 8 C.F.R. § 205.16(c)(2)). For the
reasons given above, however, the record does not compel the finding that Arcolas
would be persecuted, much less tortured, by terrorist groups or by the government
of the Philippines. And although Arcolas asserts that he might otherwise face
torture because he spent time in the United States, he points to no evidence that he
would face a particularized risk of torture for this or any other reason. See Garcia
v. Wilkinson, 988 F.3d 1136, 1148 (9th Cir. 2021) (“a speculative fear of torture is
insufficient to satisfy the ‘more likely than not’ standard”); Silva, 993 F.3d at 719
(evidence of generalized crime is not sufficient to support a CAT claim). Arcolas
has therefore failed to show that he is entitled to CAT relief.
DENIED.

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