The Board of Immigration Appeals has sustained DHS's appeal and vacated an Immigration Judge's grant of protection under the Convention Against Torture to a Salvadoran respondent. Applying the framework from Myrie v. Attorney General, under which the Immigration Judge first finds what will likely happen to the respondent, a factual finding reviewed for clear error, and then decides whether that amounts to torture, a legal question reviewed de novo, the Board found the Immigration Judge's finding of likely torture speculative. It rested on the respondent's past refusals to join a gang and on general country conditions, with no testimony that gang members had looked for him since he left in 2015 and no evidence that relatives or associates had been targeted.
The Board reiterated that a particularized showing that the applicant is more likely than not to be singled out is required, and that widespread violence alone is not enough. It also found the conclusion that the respondent could not safely relocate within El Salvador unsupported, since he had never tried to relocate, is an able-bodied adult, and has uncles who are police officers. The Board did not reach the issue of government acquiescence, deemed waived his unchallenged asylum and withholding claims, and ordered him removed to El Salvador.
The full text of Matter of K-Y-V-R- can be found here: https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1469346/dl?inline