NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS OCT 25 2023 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT SERAFIN TORRES URBINA, No. 22-1384 Agency No. Petitioner, A205-719-064 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted October 6, 2023** Seattle, Washington Before: WARDLAW and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and MATSUMOTO, Senior District Judge.*** Serafin Torres Urbina (“Torres”), a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) decision dismissing his * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable Kiyo A. Matsumoto, United States Senior District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation. appeal of the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his application for Withholding of Removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we deny the petition. 1. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s conclusion that Torres failed to establish eligibility for withholding of removal. To establish eligibility for withholding of removal in the absence of past persecution, an applicant must establish that he possesses “a subjective fear of persecution in the future, and that this fear is objectively reasonable–which, in the withholding context, means that the chance of future persecution is ‘more likely than not.’” Wakkary v. Holder, 558 F.3d 1049, 1060 (9th Cir. 2009). Torres asserts that he is afraid to return to Mexico because he will be persecuted by Los Zetas gang members on account of his membership in social groups related to his family or his family’s status as business owners.1 Torres argues that his fear of future harm is objectively reasonable because Los Zetas and other cartels are a “continuous problem for the authorities in Mexico” and he knows of two people killed in Mexico by cartels. However, as the BIA observed, Torres’s fear of harm is not objectively reasonable 1 Specifically, Torres argues that he will be persecuted because he is a (1) Mexican national whose family owns a business; (2) Mexican national whose family is being persecuted by Los Zetas; (3) Mexican national who is perceived to have more wealth than locals because his family owns a business; (4) family member of Ustorio Torres Rodriguez and Rosalia Vialda Padilla; (5) Mexican national who has been deported from the United States; (6) family member of Mexican business owners who refuse to pay extortion fees. 2 22-1384 because his family no longer owns a business, and his family members in Mexico have never been harmed–even after they ignored extortion demands. See Sinha v. Holder, 564 F.3d 1015, 1022 (9th Cir. 2009). Therefore, even if Torres’s evidence supports some likelihood of future persecution, it does not compel the conclusion that he is more …
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