Jose Orellana-Morales v. Michael Mukasey

MEMORANDUM

Petitioners Jose Efrain Orellana-Morales and Elsa Marina Sanabria-Magana, husband and wife and natives and citizens of El Salvador, petition for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals order dismissing their appeal from an immigration judge’s decision denying their application for asylum, withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252 . We deny the petition for review.

Substantial evidence supports the Board’s denial of asylum and withholding of removal because petitioners failed to show that Orellana-Morales’s alleged persecutors were guerillas who targeted him on account of his prior military service. Mr. Orellana-Morales could not explain why the unidentified men beat him in his home, other than to suggest they were either former guerillas or an individual to whom he had sold a car. Ochave v. INS, 254 F.3d 859, 865 (9th Cir.2001) (“Asylum generally is not available to victims of civil strife, unless they are singled out on account of a protected ground”); Molina-Morales v. INS, 237 F.3d 1048, 1052 (9th Cir.2001) (explaining that persecution because of a personal vendetta is not…