Salvador Amilcar Herrera Flores v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
SALVADOR AMILCAR HERRERA
FLORES,
Petitioner,
v.
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,
Respondent.
No. 21-526
Agency No.
A206-147-530
MEMORANDUM*
SALVADOR AMILCAR HERRERA
FLORES,
Petitioner,
v.
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,
Respondent.
No. 22-883
Agency No.
A206-147-530
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
FILED
SEP 20 2023
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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Submitted September 20, 2023**
Before: BENNETT, SUNG, and H.A. THOMAS, Circuit Judges.
Salvador Amilcar Herrera Flores (“Herrera Flores”) petitions for review of
the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) decision dismissing his appeal of the
Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his applications for asylum, withholding of
removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). Herrera Flores
also appeals the BIA’s denial of his motion for reconsideration. We have
jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We deny the petition in part and remand for
further proceedings on Herrera Flores’s CAT deferral claim.
1. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s dismissal of Herrera Flores’s
appeal of the IJ’s denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT withholding.
Even if we assume that Herrera Flores provided credible and persuasive testimony,
there are serious reasons for believing that he has committed a serious nonpolitical
crime in El Salvador.1 Herrera Flores is therefore barred from asylum relief and
withholding. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(2)(A)(iii); Guan v. Barr, 925 F.3d 1022, 1031
** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
1 In Herrera Flores’s case, his own testimony and multiple pieces of circumstantial
evidence corroborate the INTERPOL Red Notice. Compare Villalobos Sura v.
Garland, 8 F.4th 1161, 1167–69 (9th Cir. 2021) (holding that Red Notice along
with corroborating evidence and testimony establishes “serious reasons”) with
Gonzalez-Castillo v. Garland, 47 F.4th 971, 977–80 (9th Cir. 2022) (holding that
an erroneous Red Notice, standing alone, does not establish “serious reasons”).

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(9th Cir. 2019).
2. The BIA failed to consider all the relevant evidence cited by Herrera
Flores to support his claim for deferral under CAT. Namely, Herrera Flores claims
that he was beaten in prison by gang members while police officers watched and
laughed. See Xochihua-Jaimes v. Barr, 962 F.3d 1175, 1185 (9th Cir. 2020)
(finding that being beaten by gang members while “police officers looked on and
did [] nothing but laugh” constitutes acquiescence by a public official). As
recommended by the government, we remand to the BIA to consider (1) whether
Herrera Flores’s beating in prison by gang members constituted torture; (2)
whether the Salvadoran police acquiesced by watching and laughing as Herrera
Flores was beaten; and (3) whether Herrera Flores would be tortured in the future
as the result of being named in an INTERPOL Red Notice.
PETITION DENIED IN PART, REMANDED IN PART.2
2 Herrera Flores’s appeal of the BIA’s denial of his motion for reconsideration is
dismissed as moot.

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