Minerva Carbajal-Recinos v. Attorney General United States of America

NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ________________ No. 24-2336 ________________

MINERVA CARBAJAL-RECINOS; DELMER ORLANDO CARBAJAL-DUQUE; J.S. C.-C ; Y.S.C.-C., Petitioners v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ________________ On Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Agency Nos. 1:A208-273-735; 1:A208-273-674, 1:A208-273-736 & 1:A208-273-737) Immigration Judge: Mary C. Lee ________________ Submitted under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) on June 26, 2025 Before: MONTGOMERY-REEVES, ROTH and AMBRO, Circuit Judges (Opinion filed: January 6, 2026) ________________ OPINION* ROTH, Circuit Judge Minerva Carbajal-Recinos, joined by her nephew Delmer Carbajal-Duque, petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision denying their applications for asylum and withholding of removal.1 For the reasons that follow, we will deny their petition.

Petitioners are natives of Las Brisas, Honduras, where, beginning in June 2007, they lived on a family farm purchased by Carbajal-Recinos’ brother (and Carbajal-Duque’s uncle) Isaias. At some point in 2008, local gang-members affiliated with Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), led by a high-ranking neighbor of the Carbajals, began pillaging livestock, crops, and money from the farm, and pressuring male members of the Carbajal family to join their gang. In December 2008, the gang began extorting Isaias for increasingly large sums of money. In July 2009, the sums demanded outgrew Isaias’ ability to pay, and he reported the extortion to the police. The gang’s harassment then escalated, culminating in August 2009 with the murder of Isaias and his son Carlos.

After Isaias’ death, MS-13 members upped their pressure on the remaining Carbajals to abandon the farm and continued to pillage the farm’s livestock. Then, in February 2012, MS-13 members carried out a drive-by-shooting into Carbajal-Recinos’ home as a way of threatening her husband into joining their gang.2 Matters escalated further in April 2012, when MS-13 members murdered Isaias’ wife on the way home from the bank “because they knew she had money” with her.3 Shortly afterwards, MS-13 members came into Carbajal-Duque’s bedroom and told him that he and his siblings would be killed if his family did not abandon the farm within two weeks. At some point, gang members also shot bullets towards Carbajal-Recinos and other members of her family as they were on their way home from church.

Over time, these threats and acts of harassment drove each member of the Carbajal family to flee Las Brisas (culminating in the sale of the farm in 2013). Carbajal-Recinos’ parents (Carbajal-Duque’s grandparents) left for Colon in 2012, followed that same year by Carbajal-Duque.4 Carbajal-Recinos joined them in Colon in 2013. Much of the remaining family fled to the United States, although two of Carbajal-Recinos’ siblings (and one of Carbajal Duque’s siblings) continue to reside in Honduras.

Petitioners lived safely in Colon, about 8 hours away from Las Brisas, until 2015, when a man on a motorcycle arrived in Colon and began asking questions concerning the whereabouts of Carbajal-Recinos. At around the same time, Carbajal-Duque was told by a family living about 15 minutes away from him that gang members had been inquiring into where his family lived.5 Carbajal-Duque also learned that the MS-13 leader responsible for the murder of his aunt, uncle, and cousin had moved in nearby. Concerned that these events signaled a renewed threat to their lives, and that MS-13 might wish to kill Carbajal-Duque to prevent him from avenging Isaias, Petitioners fled to the United States in June of 2015.

Upon arrival in the United States, Carbajal-Recinos and Carbajal-Duque were charged with removability under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i). They conceded that charge, but applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Carbajal-Recinos and Carbajal-Duque’s petitions were subsequently consolidated, and their joint merits-hearing was held on October 29, 2019.

At that hearing, their attorney conceded that the harms they had faced did not amount to past persecution, but argued that those harms supported a finding that they were at risk of persecution and/or torture if returned.

After hearing from both Carbajal-Recinos and Carbajal-Duque, and deeming them both to be credible, the IJ held that they had nevertheless failed to show (1) that their proposed family-based social group was cognizable, and (2) that their family membership was one central reason for MS-13’s interest in them.6 It therefore denied their petitions for asylum and withholding of removal.7 The BIA affirmed, based solely on the IJ’s nexus determination. Carbajal-Recino and Carbajal-Duque then petitioned this Court for review.

The BIA had jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1103(g) and 8 C.F.R. §§ 1003.1(b) and 1240.15, while we have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a). We review the BIA’s legal determinations de novo.8 We review the BIA’s factual findings, including “whether an asylum applicant has established the requisite nexus between the persecution he has suffered or will suffer and his protected characteristic” under the substantial evidence standard, which requires us to affirm “‘unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to’” reject the BIA’s determination.9 Where the BIA “affirms and partially reiterates the IJ’s discussions and determinations,” we review both the BIA’s and IJ’s opinions, but only insofar as the IJ’s opinion informed the grounds ultimately relied upon by the BIA.10 To show statutory eligibility for asylum, an applicant must “establish that race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion was or will be at least one central reason for persecuting” him or her.11 An applicant for withholding of removal must likewise satisfy the “one central reason” test.12 A motive may be “central” for asylum purposes even if other motives also played a large role in the applicant’s persecution, so long as the proscribed motive was not “incidental, tangential, or superficial.”13 An applicant who has been (or will be) “targeted out of a simple desire for money has not experienced,” or shown that they will experience “persecution on account of a ground protected by the INA.”14 Here, the BIA determined that Carbajal-Recinos and Carbajal-Duque had not met their burden of showing that their proposed particular social group, immediate members of the Carbajal family, would play a central role in any persecution they are at risk of suffering if removed to Honduras. In particular, the BIA found that MS-13’s extortion (and subsequent murder) of Isaias was motivated by the desire for his money, not by Isaias’ family membership. Likewise, the BIA concluded that MS-13’s continued harassment of various Carbajal family members (including Petitioners) following Isaias’ death was economically motivated, and that any role played by the victim’s familial status was, at most, incidental or tangential to that central aim.15 Nothing in the record compels us to reject the BIA’s conclusion that, while horrifying, the murder of Petitioners’ loved ones was motivated by lucre rather than by surname. Indeed, Carbajal-Recinos acknowledged that Isaias was targeted “because of extortion,” Isais’ son was targeted “because he was with Isais at the time of the murder,” and Isais’ wife was targeted because “she had money.” Nor was it unreasonable for the BIA to find that the pillaging, harassment, and threats which both preceded and followed those murders were likewise profit-driven. Carbajal-Recinos’ testimony that an unknown individual began inquiring into her whereabouts in Colon, and Carbajal-Duque’s secondhand reports that gang-members had inquired into his family’s location, while undoubtedly concerning, do not compel us to conclude that the BIA’s assessment was unreasonable. This is particularly true because Carbajal-Recinos’ parents, who are also members of their asserted social group, have remained in Colon throughout these asylum proceedings without being harmed.

Petitioners’ contention that they were targeted out of concern that they might take vengeance on Isaias’ killers, or that there was “a pattern and practice of gang members in Honduras of targeting family members of the individuals who they wish to harm,”16 is not sufficient. The question is not whether Petitioners’ interpretation is plausible, but whether it is “so superior relative to the agency's finding that no reasonable adjudicator could have found as the agency did.”17 Viewing the record as a whole, the BIA’s conclusion easily clears this low standard.18 For the aforementioned reasons, the petition for review will be denied.19