Arturo Barrientos v. Loretta E. Lynch

MEMORANDUM

Arturo Alexander Barrientos, a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions for review of the BIA’s decision affirming the IJ’s denial of withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). In an order filed concurrently with this memorandum disposition, we conclude that we have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252 . We deny the petition for review.

I

Barrientos first argues that the record compels the conclusion that he would suffer future persecution because of membership in his family if he returned to El Salvador. See 8 U.S.C. § 1231 (b)(3)(A).

Barrientos’s testimony and asylum application plainly state that his past persecution was, and future persecution would be, because he refused to join the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang, not because of his family membership. In another sign that he would not be persecuted because of his family, Barrientos testified that, other than his cousin, numerous close relatives in El Salvador, with the same last name, have not been harmed by MS-13. Barrientos testified that his cousin “was killed because he didn’t want to become a member of’ the gang, not because of his family membership. Barrientos’s…