In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ Nos. 18-1511 & 18-3196 RAFAEL GIOVANNI HERRERA-GARCIA, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General of the United States, Respondent. ____________________ Petitions for Review of Decisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals. No. A074-211-058 ____________________ ARGUED SEPTEMBER 25, 2018 — DECIDED MARCH 18, 2019 ____________________ Before KANNE, ROVNER, and BARRETT, Circuit Judges. BARRETT, Circuit Judge. Rafael Giovanni Herrera-Garcia seeks to avoid removal to El Salvador because he says that he will be tortured by gangs or corrupt government authorities if he is forced to return there. An immigration judge found that Herrera-Garcia had not shown that he, specifically, would be in danger and denied his request for relief. The judge also concluded that Herrera-Garcia had not established 2 Nos. 18-1511 & 18-3196 that the government would have inflicted or allowed the alleged torture. The Board adopted and affirmed that decision. Because the administrative decisions are supported by substantial evidence in the record, we deny Herrera-Garcia’s petition for review of these decisions. We also reject his second petition for review on the denial of his motion for reconsideration because we agree with the Board that it was untimely. I. Herrera-Garcia is a native and citizen of El Salvador. He entered the United States illegally in 1990 and has remained here for the past twenty-seven years. In 2016, the Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against him under 8 U.S.C. § 1229a.1 It alleged that he was removable as an alien because he was (1) convicted of a crime of moral turpitude and (2) present in the United States without being admitted or paroled. In his removal proceedings before the immigration judge (IJ), Herrera-Garcia denied both claims and argued that he qualified for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Herrera-Garcia’s argument for withholding centered on his time growing up in El Salvador. He testified that when he was nine years old, guerrillas stopped him and his friends to get information about people in his neighborhood who might be working for the military—because at that time, the 1 Herrera-Garcia had previously been in removal proceedings that are not relevant to this appeal. Nos. 18-1511 & 18-3196 3 guerillas and the El Salvadoran government were fighting a civil war. Herrera-Garcia said that the guerrillas continued to stop by every three weeks or so to ask similar questions. He admitted, however, that he never saw any of the guerillas with guns. He also said that during one encounter, the guerrillas stopped him and a few friends and forced his friend, Franklin, to smoke marijuana. He claimed that although he escaped from the guerillas, they kidnapped Franklin. Herrera-Garcia also testified that several of his friends were forced to join the military. He explained that he didn’t want to be involved in the violence between the military and the guerillas. Ultimately, out of fear of both the military and the guerillas, he fled to the United States in 1990 ...
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