Hugo Hurtado v. Loretta E. Lynch

MEMORANDUM

1. Substantial evidence supports the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) denial of Hugo Hurtado’s application for asylum. The BIA properly found that the government’s evidence rebutted, on an individualized basis, the specific grounds for Hurtado’s fear of future persecution on account of imputed political opinion. See Popova v. INS, 273 F.3d 1251, 1259 (9th Cir.2001). The government submitted two country reports on El Salvador establish ing that (1) the civil war ended in 1993, (2) the military has been restructured, and (3) the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front is now the majority political party. That evidence supports the BIA’s determination that fundamentally changed conditions rebutted the presumption of future persecution. See Singh v. Holder, 753 F.3d 826, 832-33 (9th Cir.2014); Gonzalez-Hernandez v. Ashcroft, 336 F.3d 995, 1000 (9th Cir.2003). Substantial evidence also supports the BIA’s conclusion that Hurtado did not establish a well-founded fear of persecution from other sources— namely, criminal gangs. The BIA reasonably concluded that Hurtado’s testimony established only the “mere prevalence of violence” and not that he would be a particular…