Domingo

MEMORANDUM **

Domingo Salvador Nicolas Domingo and his wife, Candelaria Mateo Pablo-Nolasco, *216 natives and citizens of Guatemala, petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) decision dismissing their appeal from an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) order denying their applications for asylum, withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252 . We review for substantial evidence the BIA’s denial of an application for asylum on the ground that the alien has not established eligibility. See Meza-Manay v. INS, 139 F.3d 759, 762 (9th Cir.1998). We deny the petition for review.

Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s finding that the threatening letters Nicolas Domingo received from guerrillas were not motivated by any of the five protected grounds. Rather, they were an attempt at recruitment and therefore do not compel a finding of past persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of political opinion. See Pedro-Mateo v. INS, 224 F.3d 1147, 1151 (9th Cir.2000) (citing INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 482-83 , 112 S.Ct. 812 , 117 L.Ed.2d 38 (1992)) (stating that attempts to…