NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS AUG 9 2021 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT LORIBEL CALIXTON NAPALA, No. 17-70879 Petitioner, Agency No. A206-352-611 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted February 3, 2021** Honolulu, Hawaii Before: CLIFTON, R. NELSON, and COLLINS, Circuit Judges. Petitioner Loribel Calixton Napala (“Napala”), a native and citizen of the Philippines, petitions for review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming the order of the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denying her applications for asylum and withholding of removal. We have jurisdiction under * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes that this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). § 242 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1252. “Where, as here, the BIA summarily affirms the IJ, we review the IJ’s decision as the final agency action.” Singh v. Holder, 638 F.3d 1264, 1268 (9th Cir. 2011). While we review legal questions de novo, findings of fact are reviewed for substantial evidence, Hamazaspyan v. Holder, 590 F.3d 744, 747 (9th Cir. 2009), meaning that those findings must be upheld unless “any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B). We deny the petition. 1. Because Napala conceded that she had not suffered past persecution, she would be eligible for asylum only if she established a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of a protected ground. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(42)(A), 1158(b)(1)(B). Napala claimed such a fear based on an outstanding Philippine arrest warrant resulting from a 2011 criminal complaint against her for concubinage. Noting that Napala had engaged in a “bigamous marriage[]” when she married an already-married Filipino man in Hong Kong in 1995, the IJ concluded that Napala faced “ordinary prosecution” for criminal activity, “not persecution.” We find no basis for overturning the IJ’s determination. Napala contends that, by threatening prosecution for concubinage and by disallowing divorce more generally, the Philippines “infringes upon its citizens’ fundamental rights to marry, divorce, and remarry freely.” To the extent that this claim is based on an alleged interference with her husband’s 2012 divorce in 2 Hawaii or their subsequent marriage there in 2015, there is no factual basis for such a contention. The concubinage charge was filed in 2011, at a time in which Napala was in a bigamous relationship, and there is no fundamental right to engage in bigamy. The fact that Napala’s husband later obtained a divorce from his first wife from a Hawaii court in 2012, and then married Napala in Hawaii in 2015, does not erase the fact that she engaged in bigamy in the Philippines in 2011. To the extent that Napala instead contends that the threatened prosecution for engaging in …
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