In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 16‐4193 W.G.A., Petitioner, v. JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS III, Attorney General of the United States, Respondent. ____________________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. No. Axxx‐xxx‐xxx. ____________________ ARGUED JANUARY 18, 2018 — DECIDED AUGUST 21, 2018 ____________________ Before SYKES and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges, and LEE, District Judge.* HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. In 2015, tattooed members of the Mara 18 gang held a gun to petitioner W.G.A.’s head and * Of the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation. 2 No. 16‐4193 threatened to kill him.1 The Mara 18—also known as the “Calle 18,” “Barrio 18,” or “Eighteenth Street” gang—is one of the two main gangs operating in El Salvador. Together with their rivals, MS‐13, the Mara 18 terrorize the Salvadoran pop‐ ulation and government. The gangs use violence to exercise an enormous degree of social control over their territories, dictating where residents can walk, whom they can talk to, what they can wear, and when they must be inside their homes. The gangs have orchestrated labor strikes, brokered a now‐defunct truce with the government, and plotted to bomb government buildings. They brag about influencing elections and controlling political campaigns within their territories. They extort millions of dollars from local businesses through threats of violence, and they are largely responsible for El Sal‐ vador’s homicide rate—one of the highest in the world.2 Two days after the Mara 18 threatened W.G.A., he fled to the United States. The Department of Homeland Security apprehended W.G.A. for illegally entering the United States and began re‐ moval proceedings against him. W.G.A. applied for asylum, 1 We refer to petitioner with an initialed pseudonym to protect his identity. See Doe v. Gonzales, 484 F.3d 445, 446 (7th Cir. 2007). 2 According to a report in the record by the U.S. Department of State, the 2015 homicide rate in El Salvador was 103 murders per year for every 100,000 citizens. For context, Chicago has a murder rate of about 17.5 hom‐ icides per 100,000 inhabitants. Matthew Friedman, Ames Grawert & James Cullen, NYU School of Law Brennan Center for Justice, Crime in 2016: Up‐ dated Analysis, Table 2, p. 3 (data updated Dec. 19, 2016), available at http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/crime‐2016‐updated‐analysis. The State Department estimates that the national homicide rate in the United States is about 4.5 murders per year per 100,000 citizens. No. 16‐4193 3 statutory withholding of removal, and deferral of removal un‐ der Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture, arguing that the Mara 18 gang would kill him if he returned to El Salvador. The immigration judge denied his applications and ordered removal. The Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed W.G.A.’s appeal, and he petitions this court for review. We grant W.G.A.’s petition for review and remand to the Board for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. I. Factual & Procedural Background W.G.A. is a citizen of El Salvador who arrived in the United States in January 2016. The immigration judge ...
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