Sonia Del Carmen Cañas De Sierra v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
SONIA DEL CARMEN CAÑAS DE
SIERRA,
Petitioner,
v.
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,
Respondent.
No. 21-1236
Agency No. A209-835-709
MEMORANDUM*
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Submitted June 6, 2023**
Pasadena, California
Before: M. SMITH, HAMILTON,*** and COLLINS, Circuit Judges.
Sonia del Carmen Cañas de Sierra, a citizen of El Salvador, petitions for
review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) upholding a
decision of an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denying her applications for asylum and
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as
provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The panel unanimously concludes that this case is suitable for decision without
oral argument. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
*** The Honorable David F. Hamilton, Senior United States Circuit Judge for the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, sitting by designation.
FILED
JUN 28 2023
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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withholding of removal and ordering her removed to El Salvador.1 We have
jurisdiction under § 242 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), 8 U.S.C.
§ 1252. We review the agency’s legal conclusions de novo and its factual findings
for substantial evidence. See Davila v. Barr, 968 F.3d 1136, 1141 (9th Cir. 2020).
Under the latter standard, the “administrative findings of fact are conclusive unless
any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.”
8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B). We conclude that substantial evidence supports the
agency’s denial of Cañas de Sierra’s applications for asylum and withholding of
removal, and we therefore deny the petition.
Cañas de Sierra, the owner of a small business, testified that she and “many”
other business owners were extorted for cash by gang members. The gang
members subsequently told Cañas de Sierra to traffic drugs for them and said they
would “burn” her in her car if she did not. Cañas de Sierra subsequently borrowed
money through a friend and left El Salvador for the United States. Cañas de Sierra
testified that while her brother had informed her that gang members asked about
her after her departure, “nothing has happened” to her siblings in El Salvador. A
nephew named Carlos Medrano, however, had been killed by the Mara 18 gang for
1 The IJ also denied relief under the Convention Against Torture, but Cañas de
Sierra did not challenge that denial either in her appeal to the BIA or in her
opening brief in this court. We therefore deemed that issue to be forfeited. See
Escobar Santos v. Garland, 4 F.4th 762, 764–65 n.1 (9th Cir. 2021).

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helping the MS-13 gang.
On this record, substantial evidence supported the agency’s conclusion that
the threats Cañas de Sierra received “were on account of criminality and not her
status as a woman business owner,” and that Cañas de Sierra therefore “did not
establish a nexus between the proposed particular social groups of ‘women,’
‘business owners,’ or ‘women business owners’” and her feared persecution, as
necessary to prevail on her asylum and withholding claims. See Zetino v. Holder,
622 F.3d 1007, 1016 (9th Cir. 2010) (“An alien’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.”).
Petition DENIED.

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