Antelia Figueroa Barrera; Kevin Nieto Figueroa v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
ANTELIA FIGUEROA BARRERA; KEVIN
NIETO FIGUEROA,
Petitioners,
v.
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,
Respondent.
No. 21-70988
Agency Nos. A206-911-229
A206-911-230
MEMORANDUM*
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Submitted June 6, 2022**
Seattle, Washington
Before: GILMAN,*** IKUTA, and MILLER, Circuit Judges.
Petitioners Antelia Figueroa Barrera and her son, Kevin Nieto Figueroa,
seek review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals affirming the denial
* 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 Ronald Lee Gilman, United States Circuit Judge for
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation.
FILED
JUN 16 2022
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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of their applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the
Convention Against Torture (CAT). In September 2012, Esteban Nieto Flores—
Figueroa Barrera’s husband and Kevin’s father—was killed in Guerrero, Mexico.
Petitioners believe that Nieto Flores was killed by a drug cartel known as the
“Caballeros Templarios.” Petitioners assert that if returned to Mexico, they would
be persecuted because they belong to the particular social group of “Immediate
Family Members of Esteban Nieto Flores.”
The Board held that petitioners’ asylum and withholding-of-removal claims
failed for lack of a nexus to a particular social group, and that their CAT claims
failed because they did not show that it is more likely than not that they would be
tortured if returned to Mexico. We review the agency’s factual determinations for
substantial evidence, and review de novo whether the agency applied the correct
legal standard. Garcia v. Wilkinson, 988 F.3d 1136, 1142, 1146 (9th Cir. 2021).
We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we deny the petition for review.
1. An applicant for asylum or withholding of removal must demonstrate
a nexus between the persecution she suffered or fears and a protected ground.
Barajas-Romero v. Lynch, 846 F.3d 351, 356–58 (9th Cir. 2017); Garcia, 988 F.3d
at 1143. For purposes of asylum, an applicant must show that the protected ground
is “one central reason” for her persecution. Barajas-Romero, 846 F.3d at 358; 8
U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i). The nexus standard in the context of withholding of

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removal is “less demanding,” requiring the applicant to show only that the
protected ground is “a reason” for her persecution. Barajas-Romero, 846 F.3d at
360; 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(C).
Substantial evidence supports the Board’s conclusion that there was no
nexus between petitioners’ proposed particular social group and the harm they
suffered or fear. Petitioners received a series of anonymous phone calls and text
messages that they interpreted as threatening. Figueroa Barrera also received a text
message from the Caballeros Templarios demanding 50,000 pesos and threatening
to kidnap Kevin if she did not comply. But the record does not compel the
conclusion that petitioners received these threats because they were immediate
family members of Nieto Flores. The threats that Figueroa Barrera received did not
mention Nieto Flores. Nor is there evidence that the anonymous caller’s attempted
meeting with Kevin was motivated by his familial relationship with Nieto Flores.
Though petitioners might have been contacted by members of the Caballeros
Templarios, an applicant’s “desire to be free from harassment by criminals
motivated by theft or random violence by gang members bears no nexus to a
protected ground.” Zetino v. Holder, 622 F.3d 1007, 1016 (9th Cir. 2010).
Petitioners also received threats from their relative, Celica Quintana. The
Board reasonably concluded that Figueroa Barrera’s disagreement with Quintana
over the ownership of Nieto Flores’s Cadillac Escalade was a “personal dispute”

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unrelated to Figueroa Barrera’s relationship with Nieto Flores. See Madrigal v.
Holder, 716 F.3d 499, 506 (9th Cir. 2013) (noting that “mistreatment motivated
purely by personal retribution will not give rise to a valid asylum claim”). The
Board also reasonably concluded that Quintana did not attempt to recruit Kevin
into her cartel because of “his family relationship with [Nieto Flores],” but rather
because of a desire “to increase the numbers and strength of her criminal
organization.” See Zetino, 622 F.3d at 1016. Substantial evidence supports the
Board’s conclusion that no nexus existed between the threats from Quintana and
petitioners’ particular social group.
2. Petitioners challenge the legal standard that the Board used to assess
the nexus for their withholding-of-removal claim. In its decision, the Board did not
distinguish between the nexus standard used for asylum (“one central reason”) and
the less demanding standard used for withholding of removal (“a reason”). But the
Board found that petitioners “did not demonstrate a nexus between the threats they
received and the proposed particular social group,” explaining that it “agree[d]
with the . . . determination” of the immigration judge, who had concluded that
there was “no connection between the murder of [Nieto Flores] in September of
2012 and any claimed persecution relating to the [petitioners].” Because the
Board’s decision is best read as finding that there was “no nexus between the harm
to [petitioners] and the alleged protected ground,” we conclude that “neither the

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result nor the [Board’s] basic reasoning would change,” even under the correct
standard for withholding of removal, and therefore we need not remand to allow
the Board to apply that standard independently. Singh v. Barr, 935 F.3d 822, 827
(9th Cir. 2019) (per curiam).
3. Substantial evidence supports the Board’s denial of petitioners’ CAT
claims. Petitioners were not tortured in the past, and the record provides no reason
to believe that they would be tortured by or with the acquiescence of the Mexican
government in the future.
PETITION DENIED.

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