The First Circuit has denied a petition for review filed by a Salvadoran woman who was robbed by gang members on three occasions and later threatened by an MS-13-affiliated relative after she urged her sister to report him to police for sexually assaulting her niece.
The Court held that substantial evidence supported the agency's finding that the robberies were motivated by ordinary financial gain rather than any protected characteristic, and that the relative's threats stemmed from personal revenge for the police report rather than the petitioner's family membership itself, particularly since other family members in El Salvador were left unharmed. Because the petitioner could not establish the required nexus for either asylum or withholding of removal, the Court did not need to reach her timeliness argument or her claim for humanitarian asylum.
The full text of Monzon Guzman v. Blanche can be found here: https://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/sites/ca1/files/opnfiles/25-1351P-01A.pdf