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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 18-12317
Non-Argument Calendar
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Agency No. A208-358-662
LUIS FRANCISCO ROJAS COLINA,
Petitioner,
versus
U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL,
Respondent.
________________________
Petition for Review of a Decision of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
________________________
(March 15, 2019)
Before ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Luis Francisco Rojas Colina seeks review of the Board of Immigration
Appeals’s (“BIA”) final order affirming the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his
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applications for asylum and withholding of removal. Rojas Colina challenges the
agency’s finding that he was ineligible for relief because he did not establish that his
past mistreatment or feared future persecution, was on account of his real or imputed
political opinion. After careful review, we deny the petition.
I.
Rojas Colina is a native and citizen of Venezuela who last entered the United
States in February 2015 as a nonimmigrant visitor. He was placed in removal
proceedings after he was found to have violated the terms of his visa status by
working without authorization. He conceded removability and then applied for relief
in the form of asylum and withholding of removal based on political opinion.1
A.
Rojas Colina, who was represented by counsel, testified to the following at a
merits hearing before an IJ. He has a college degree in electrical engineering. From
2011 to 2014, he worked as a Field Service Supervisor for Samsung in Caracas,
Venezuela. Before that, he worked for another telecommunications-device
company. He had also been involved in political parties opposed to the Venezuelan
government since 2004. Rojas Colina first joined the Primero Justicia political party
1
Rojas Colina also applied for withholding under the Convention Against Torture, but his
briefing does not address this ground for relief. So this issue is abandoned.
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before switching to the Un Nuevo Tiempo party when it split from Primero Justicia
in 2006. He was politically active with Un Nuevo Tiempo through 2015.
According to Rojas Colina, the events that caused him to leave Venezuela in
fear began in 2013. Around this time, Samsung and the Venezuelan government had
announced that they planned to open an assembly plant in Venezuela as a joint
venture. The plan also included opening new service centers. Rojas Colina was in
charge of hiring for part of the project.
Because of this hiring authority, Rojas Colina was targeted by a government-
affiliated telecommunications labor union. The labor union wanted to dictate whom
he hired to work on the Samsung project. Rojas Colina refused, stating that he would
hire people with the right skills and that nobody outside of Samsung would influence
his hiring decisions.
The labor union’s pressure campaign against Rojas Colina included threats
through phone calls, text messages, and messages left with his secretary. At first,
the threats were general, and he did not take them seriously. The union threatened
to stop the deal if he did not meet with them, or to do something to make him meet
them. This went on for about four to six months. After that, the threats became
more serious and specific, invoking details about his schedule and his brother and
sister. And by mid-2014, according to Rojas Colina, the threats also included
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references to his political activity. Specifically, he was accused of trying to make
the Venezuelan government look bad because he was a member of the opposition.
In addition to the threatening messages, Rojas Colina believes the labor union
attempted to kidnap him on November 26, 2014. Just before that date, the union had
warned him that they were “going to hit on [him]” and that he would need “four eyes
to see” anywhere he went. Then, as he was driving home on November 26, he was
hit twice by a government vehicle and chased for “two or three minutes.” His car
was damaged and he received some minor injuries. He tried to report the incident
to authorities, but the police told him that they could not receive his complaint
because he did not have a name or tag number for the other vehicle. After this
incident, Rojas Colina received a call stating that “next time . . . we will complete
the job.”
Rojas Colina resigned from Samsung in January 2015 and left Venezuela the
following month. The threats ended once he left Venezuela. But he believed that
he would be on the union’s radar if he returned to Venezuela, and he asserted that
political conditions in Venezuela had worsened since he came to the United States.
B.
The IJ denied Rojas Colina’s applications for relief. The IJ found that he
testified credibly but that he had not established that the threats and vehicular attack
were on account of his political opinion, whether real or imputed. Rather, according
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to the IJ, Rojas Colina was threatened and harassed because he refused the labor
union’s demands to use his position at Samsung to hire union employees. While the
labor union may have referenced his political activities and other details of his life
in an attempt to threaten him, the IJ stated, he was targeted “exclusively due to his
position with Samsung” out of a motivation to have him hire union members, not
because of his political opinions. Accordingly, the IJ found that Rojas Colina had
failed to establish his eligibility for asylum or withholding of removal.
The BIA denied Rojas Colina’s appeal. The BIA stated that Rojas Colina
“offered only speculation that his imputed political opinion was a central
motivation” for the threats and vehicular attack. “It is equally plausible,” the BIA
stated, “that the threats and road incident were motivated solely by the desire to
influence the respondent’s hiring decisions.” Accordingly, the BIA affirmed the IJ’s
denial of asylum and withholding of removal. Rojas Colina now petitions this Court
for review of the denial of asylum of withholding of removal.
II.
In immigration cases, we review the agency’s factual findings for substantial
evidence and its conclusions of law de novo. Kazemzadeh v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 577
F.3d 1341, 1350 (11th Cir. 2009). Review for substantial evidence is deferential and
is based on a construction of the record evidence that is most favorable to the
agency’s decision. Id. We must affirm the agency decision “if it is supported by
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reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole.”
Id. at 1351 (quotation marks omitted). Findings of fact may be reversed only if the
record compels a different result. Id.
The government has the discretion to grant asylum if the applicant establishes
that he is a “refugee.” 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(A). A “refugee” is someone who is
unable or unwilling to return to her country of nationality “because of persecution
or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality,
membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Id. § 1101(a)(42)(A).
One of these protected grounds must be “at least one central reason” for the
persecution. Id. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(i). Similarly, an applicant for withholding of
removal must establish that his life or freedom would be threatened upon removal
“because of the [his] race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social
group, or political opinion.” Id. § 1231(b)(3)(A). In other words, an application
must establish a “nexus” to a protected ground to be eligible for asylum or
withholding of removal. We will not reverse a finding that an applicant failed to
demonstrate a nexus if the finding is supported by substantial evidence. Rodriguez
Morales v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 488 F.3d 884, 890 (11th Cir. 2007).
Here, substantial evidence supports the agency’s determination that Rojas
Colina failed to establish that he has been or will be persecuted because of his real
or imputed political opinions. See Kazemzadeh, 577 F.3d at 1350. The record
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supports the agency’s finding that the threats and vehicular attack were motivated
by a desire to influence his hiring decisions. Rojas Colina had been politically active
since 2004 without incident, and he was not threatened until he was given hiring
authority for the joint venture between Samsung and the government in 2013. By
Rojas Colina’s own account, the goal of the threats was to influence his hiring
decisions. These threats escalated after he repeatedly refused to hire union members
for Samsung. While that escalation included using details about his private life
against him, including his opposition political activities, he was never ordered to
stop his political activities or denounce his allegiance to the opposition party.
Rather, all he was asked to do was hire union members. Thus, while some evidence
supports Rojas Colina’s interpretation of events, “the evidence equally supports an
inference that he was threatened simply because of his refusal to [do as the labor
union asked], and [so] the record does not ‘compel’ [us] to [reverse].” Rodriquez
Morales, 488 F.3d at 891.
To the extent that Rojas Colina argues that the BIA legally erred by finding
that a political motive for the threats was “equally plausible” and yet not finding it
was “one central reason” for the claimed persecution, this argument fails. The BIA’s
statement about equal plausibility was not inconsistent with the “one central reason”
nexus standard, but was merely a statement that, because Rojas Colina’s belief in a
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central political motive was based on speculation, it was equally plausible that the
union members had no political motive whatsoever. See id.
Because Rojas Colina has failed to demonstrate that the agency committed a
legal error or that the record compels a finding that he met the nexus requirement,
we deny his petition for review.
PETITION DENIED.
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