Norma Santos-Menjivar v. PAMELA J. BONDI, Attorney General of the United States

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Argued March 3, 2026
Decided March 17, 2026
Before
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
JOSHUA P. KOLAR, Circuit Judge
NANCY L. MALDONADO, Circuit Judge
No. 25-2202
NORMA SANTOS-MENJIVAR, et al.,
Petitioners,
v.
PAMELA J. BONDI,
Attorney General of the United States,
Respondent.
Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals.
Nos. A209-418-577, A209-418-605,
A209-418-606, A209-418-607
O R D E R
Norma Santos-Menjivar, a Honduran citizen, petitions for review of an order of
the Board of Immigration Appeals upholding the immigration judge’s denial of asylum
and withholding of removal (based on social-group membership) for herself and her
three children. In relevant part, the immigration judge (IJ) ruled that she did not show a
nexus between her proposed particular social groups and the future harm she feared.
Because substantial evidence supports that determination, we deny Santos’s petition.
In 2018, the Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings
against Santos and her three foreign-born children, charging each as inadmissible
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. A PP. P. 32.1

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No. 25-2202 Page 2
noncitizens present without being admitted or paroled. See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i).
Through counsel, Santos and her children conceded the charges of removability and
applied for asylum and withholding of removal. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1158(b)(1)(A),
1231(b)(3)(A). She asserted that she has a well-founded fear of future persecution
because gang members in Honduras had demanded money from her under threat of
death, purportedly on account of her membership in three particular social groups: (1)
Hondurans who have opposed or resisted criminal gangs; (2) single Honduran women
living without male partners; and (3) women in Honduras.†
The IJ made the following findings of fact. Before coming to the United States,
Santos lived in Honduras with her three children and mother. Santos had a domestic
partner who came to the United States in 2015 and sent money to Santos to help pay for
a “nice car” and phone. In August 2016, three men—one of whom Santos had heard
was part of a gang—visited Santos at her home and asked about her son. Upon learning
that Santos’s son was not home, the men left. Later that evening, after her son returned
home, Santos received a telephone call from an unknown caller, who told her that she
must pay a “rent tax” or she and her children would be killed.
Santos did not report the threat. She testified that the “police [are] in agreement
with the gangs” and that people had died for not giving in to a gang’s extortion
demand. She knew one man, for example, who was murdered in a nearby alley after
being taken from his home by people dressed as police. She also knew a young woman
who was “disappeared” by the gangs (for reasons Santos did not say). Because of these
fears, Santos fled Honduras a week or two after she was threatened. After her flight,
unidentified people asked her partner’s family where she had gone. The questioners
asked nothing further and did not harm or threaten the partner’s family.
An IJ denied petitioners’ applications. The IJ first concluded that Santos had not
established a nexus between the extortion and any of her proposed particular social
groups. Despite finding Santos’s account of mistreatment credible, the IJ determined
that Santos was targeted based on her perceived wealth—relying on her testimony that
she had a nice car and a phone—rather than her gender and living situation, or her
† Santos advanced several other theories that she no longer pursues on appeal: that (1) she was
entitled to protection under the Convention Against Torture, (2) she was persecuted for belonging to the
social group of “single Honduran women living alone,” (3) she had experienced past persecution, and (4)
she faces future persecution because of “a pattern or practice” in Honduras of persecution against a
group to which she belongs.

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No. 25-2202 Page 3
resistance to gangs. By Santos’s own admission, another man had been killed for failing
to pay a “rent tax,” making it difficult to draw any connection between her gender and
the extortion. The IJ also ruled that Santos’s proposed group of “Hondurans who have
opposed or resisted criminal gangs” was not cognizable.
If Santos returned to Honduras, the IJ added, she did not have an objectively
reasonable fear that she would be persecuted. Santos had not received any further
threats since the extortion attempt, and her sister (who remains in Honduras) had not
reported that any gang members were looking for her. And because Santos did not
present evidence that the gang would be able to locate her if she returned, the IJ found
that Santos could move elsewhere in the country. Santos sought further review from the
Board of Immigration Appeals, but the Board summarily affirmed the IJ’s decision.
Santos now petitions this court for review. To qualify for asylum or withholding
of removal, Santos needed to establish that there was a nexus between her feared future
harm and a statutorily protected ground—in her case, membership in a particular social
group. See Granados Arias v. Garland, 69 F.4th 454, 465 (7th Cir. 2023); 8 U.S.C.
§§ 1101(a)(42)(A), 1158(b)(1)(A). The protected ground must be a “central reason” for
the feared harm, meaning that it need not be the only reason, but it could not be a minor
one. W.G.A. v. Sessions, 900 F.3d 957, 965 (7th Cir. 2018) (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B));
Granados Arias, 69 F.4th at 465. Because the Board summarily affirmed the IJ’s order, we
review the IJ’s determinations for substantial evidence and will uphold them unless any
reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to disagree. Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, 607 U.S.
___, 2026 WL 598435, at *5 (2026); de Paz-Peraza v. Bondi, 140 F.4th 390, 394 (7th Cir.
2025).
Santos argues that a central reason for being extorted was her belonging to three
proposed social groups: (1) “Hondurans who have opposed or resisted criminal gangs,”
(2) “single, Honduran women living without male partners,” and (3) “women in
Honduras.” In support of this assertion, she relies on an academic article that concludes
that these groups “are particularly vulnerable to victimization by strangers or men with
whom they have peripheral associations.”
The problem with this evidence is that it is too generalized. A petitioner must
show that “there is a reasonable probability that he or she will be singled out individually
for persecution.” Capric v. Ashcroft, 355 F.3d 1075, 1085 (7th Cir. 2004) (emphasis added)
(citing 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(2)(i)). Because evidence must be particularized to the
petitioner, general country conditions alone are not enough to suggest a nexus between
a proposed social group and a feared harm. See, e.g., Borjas Cruz v. Garland, 96 F.4th

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No. 25-2202 Page 4
1000, 1005 (7th Cir. 2024) (that extorted petitioner was a woman in a country with
pervasive culture of violence against women was alone insufficient to show she was
targeted on basis of gender); Granados Arias, 69 F.4th at 464–65 (same).
The remainder of the record does not compel us to disagree with the IJ’s nexus
determination. Santos testified, for example, that she knew of a man who had been
killed for not complying with extortion—undermining her argument that gender
contributed to her own experience. See Borjas Cruz, 96 F.4th at 1005 (existence of male
victims supported finding that petitioner’s “perceived wealth, not her sex, made her a
target for extortion”). And Santos presented no evidence to suggest that the gang
viewed her refusal to pay the rent tax as a political statement. See I.N.S. v. Elias-Zacarias,
502 U.S. 478, 483 (1992) (assuming petitioner’s resistance to join rebel army was a
political decision, nexus was not shown because the act of resistance alone does not
compel the conclusions that the rebels “will persecute him because of that political
opinion, rather than because of his refusal to fight with them”); see also de Paz-Peraza,
140 F.4th at 394 (“[C]ourts ‘must distinguish between persecution based on social status,
and an individualized reaction to the applicant based on her threat to the gang’s
interests.’” (quoting Rivera-Barrientos v. Holder, 666 F.3d 641, 653 (10th Cir. 2012)).
Although the IJ was not required to identify the assailants’ actual motivation,
substantial evidence also supports the IJ’s finding that Santos was targeted because of
her perceived wealth. She testified that she had visible markers of wealth: a nice car and
phone. Having been extorted for perceived wealth cannot justify asylum or withholding
of removal. See Borjas Cruz, 96 F.4th at 1005 (“[I]n a case involving extortion, the
petitioner must show that the persecutor had some motivation to target the social group
at issue beyond the mere desire to obtain money.”); Orellana-Arias v. Sessions, 865 F.3d
476, 485 (7th Cir. 2017) (same).
Because the record does not compel us to disagree with the IJ’s nexus
determination, the petition for review is DENIED.

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