Luke LeFever v. Ivan Castellanos

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 23-3712
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Rudy Elias Calderon Recinos
lllllllllllllllllllllPetitioner
v.
Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General of the United States
lllllllllllllllllllllRespondent
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Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
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Submitted: July 9, 2024
Filed: July 12, 2024
[Unpublished]
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Before SMITH, SHEPHERD, and ERICKSON, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
Guatemalan citizen Rudy Elias Calderon Recinos petitions for review of an
order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA).1 After careful consideration of the
1The denial of relief under the Convention Against Torture is not before this
panel. See Chay-Velasquez v. Ashcroft, 367 F.3d 751, 756 (8th Cir. 2004) (claim not
raised in opening brief is waived).

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record and the parties’ arguments on appeal, this court concludes substantial evidence
supports the agency’s determination that Calderon Recinos was not eligible for
asylum and withholding of removal. See Cano v. Barr, 956 F.3d 1034, 1038 (8th Cir.
2020) (agency’s factual determinations, including decision that applicant failed to
establish eligibility for asylum or withholding of removal, are reviewed for
substantial evidence). Even assuming, as did the BIA, that Calderon Recinos
presented a cognizable particular social group, Calderon Recinos failed to establish
there was a nexus between any harm he feared and his membership in the group. See
Silvestre-Giron v. Barr, 949 F.3d 1114, 1118 (8th Cir. 2020) (protected ground need
not be sole reason for persecution, but it cannot just be “incidental or tangential to the
persecutor’s motivation”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see also
Baltti v. Sessions, 878 F.3d 240, 245 (8th Cir. 2017) (lack of a nexus is a basis to
deny an asylum application); Gonzalez Cano v. Lynch, 809 F.3d 1056, 1059 (8th Cir.
2016) (same for withholding of removal). Because the BIA did not address the
cognizability of the particular social group Calderon Recinos proposed, the matter is
not before us. See Uriostegui-Teran v. Garland, 72 F.4th 852, 855 (8th Cir. 2023)
(only BIA’s order is subject to review).
The petition for review is denied. See 8th Cir. R. 47B.
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