Immigration: Substantial evidence supports denial of asylum application

Where substantial evidence supported the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision that the applicant’s membership in her immediate family and as a single Salvadoran women were not the reasons for her persecution, her asylum application was denied.

Background

Yasmin Rivas de Nolasco petitions this Court for review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals, or BIA, denying her asylum status based upon her membership in two particular social groups, or PSGs: her immediate family and single Salvadoran women. She also contends that she is entitled to statutory withholding of removal.

Jurisdiction

The court first assesses whether 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(1) precludes review of the merits of Rivas de Nolasco’s petition. Section 1252(b)(1) states that petitions for review of orders of removal “must be filed not later than 30 days after the date of the final order of removal.” This court has previously characterized § 1252(b)(1) as jurisdictional.

In this case, Rivas de Nolasco conceded removability before the immigration judge, or IJ, and did not appeal that determination. The only matters she pressed before the BIA were the denial of her asylum and withholding claims. And after the BIA rejected her appeal, Rivas de Nolasco filed a petition for review well over 30 days after the IJ had finalized its removability determination which she did not appeal.

But then, in Riley v. Bondi, 145 S. Ct. 2190 (2025), the Supreme Court altered the state of play and held that § 1252(b)(1) is “not jurisdictional.” In light of the Supreme Court’s recent pronouncement, the court will read § 1252(b)(1) as a nonjurisdictional claims-processing rule. Because the government does not press this basis for declining to review the petition, the court will consider the merits of the petition.

Merits

Petitioner’s request for relief is premised upon (1) her membership in the PSG of her immediate family, and persecution she therefore suffered on that basis because of death threats directed at her son Axel and (2) her membership in the PSG of single Salvadoran women, and persecution she therefore suffered on that basis when her house was allegedly singled out for the gang members to use to hide from pursuing police officers.

The record does not compel a finding that Rivas de Nolasco’s status as a single Salvadoran was “at least one central reason” that the gang members demanded entry to her home to hide from the police. In addition to explaining her belief regarding her status as a single woman before the IJ, Rivas de Nolasco testified that she “lived in a simple house and you could really see it from the street.”

The intruders also were fleeing from police, and the BIA was free to draw the inference from this evidence that they were motivated purely by convenience and were not specifically seeking a single woman’s home. And although the home invasion incident itself is corroborated by witness affidavits, the record simply does not demonstrate that the agency was compelled to find that Rivas de Nolasco’s status as a single Salvadoran woman was a central reason for that persecution.

The other incident of alleged persecution upon which Rivas de Nolasco bases her asylum claim involve alleged threats made to Axel by another fifth grader at school before the family departed El Salvador. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s conclusion that Rivas de Nolasco was not persecuted on this basis.

Indeed, she testified that she was not even made aware of these threats until after the family had entered the United States. When an asylum applicant contends that they experienced persecution “on account of” family ties, they “must demonstrate that these ties are more than ‘an incidental, tangential, superficial, or subordinate reason’ for [their] persecution.” It does not appear this standard has been met.

Petition for review denied.

Nolasco v. Bondi, Case No. 22-1176, Aug. 14, 2025. 4th Cir. (Floyd), from Board of Immigration Appeals. A Joo Kim for Petitioners. Jonathan Aaron Robbins for Respondent. VLW 025-2-330. 15 pp.