NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ________________ No. 21-2195 ________________ JOEL DE JESUS ALARCON ORTEGA, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ________________ On Petition for Review of a Decision of Board of Immigration Appeals, (Agency No. A206-681-263) Immigration Judge: Steven A. Morley ________________ Submitted under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) April 12, 2022 ________________ Before: AMBRO, SCIRICA, TRAXLER*, Circuit Judges (Opinion filed: May 20, 2022) ____________ OPINION** ____________ * The Honorable William B. Traxler, Jr., Senior Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sitting by designation. ** This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. TRAXLER, Circuit Judge Petitioner Joel de Jesus Alarcon Ortega challenges the decisions of the Immigration Judge (IJ) and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denying his application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Finding no factual or legal error in the agency’s decisions, we will deny the petition. I. Alarcon is a 34-year-old native and citizen of Guatemala who first entered the United States without authorization around 2002. He remained here until he voluntarily returned to Guatemala around 2011. Alarcon returned to the United States in 2014, applied for admission at the Calexico West port-of-entry in Calexico, California, and admitted in an interview that he did not have legal authority to enter the United States. Nevertheless, he claimed that he should be admitted to the United States because he feared persecution or torture in his native Guatemala. Accordingly, and upon Alarcon’s indication that he would be residing in Pennsylvania following his release from custody, Alarcon was served with a notice to appear before the immigration court in Philadelphia. AR 509. In 2018, the IJ held a merits hearing regarding Alarcon’s claims. During the merits hearing, Alarcon testified that many members of his immediate family—including his father and mother, two of his ten siblings, his child, and the mother of his child—still reside in Guatemala. Alarcon also testified that, despite his immediate family’s safety, more distant relatives of his had allegedly been persecuted because of his family’s connections to the Guatemalan government. 2 The family connections to the government are (1) a man of unspecified relation to Alarcon named Maximiliano Samayoa Guerra, who was nominated as Military Commissioner of Alarcon’s hometown, Concepcion Las Minas; and (2) Alarcon’s second cousin, Carlos Leonardo Solares Barrera, who allegedly served in the violent Guatemalan special forces as a “Kaibil,” and who was eventually killed by masked men in 2000 on his way home from working in the fields. According to Alarcon, his uncle Jose Maria Alarcon and three of Carlos’ children were also targeted for their familial connection to Maximiliano and Carlos. Alarcon’s uncle, Jose, died in 1986 from firearms wounds; Carlos’ daughter, Elvia Hortencia Solares Samayoa, died in 2009 in a motorcycle accident; and Carlos’ two sons, Juan Solares Samayoa and Anibal Solares Samayoa, survived attacks in 2005 and 2008 …
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