NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS SEP 20 2021 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT KEJIN CHEN, No. 16-71100 Petitioner, Agency No. A087-886-096 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted August 11, 2020 Submission Vacated November 24, 2020 Resubmitted September 16, 2021 Pasadena, California Before: WARDLAW and VANDYKE, Circuit Judges, and HILLMAN,** District Judge. Kejin Chen, a native and citizen of the People’s Republic of China, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) order dismissing his * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Timothy Hillman, United States District Judge for the District of Massachusetts, sitting by designation. applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). We have jurisdiction to review Chen’s petition under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review only the reasons the BIA gave in support of its decision, and we review those reasons for “substantial evidence.” Arrey v. Barr, 916 F.3d 1149, 1157 (9th Cir. 2019) (quoting Navas v. I.N.S., 217 F.3d 646, 658 n.16 (9th Cir. 2000); Mairena v. Barr, 917 F.3d 1119, 1123 (9th Cir. 2019). Under that standard, we must find the BIA’s reasons sufficient unless, after reviewing the record as a whole, “any reasonable adjudicator” would have been “compelled” to reach a different conclusion. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B); Garland v. Dai, 141 S. Ct. 1669, 1677 (2021). 1. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s determination that Chen did not meet his burden of proof to qualify for asylum or withholding of removal because “some of his corroborative evidence conflicts with his testimony and other corroborative evidence.” Reviewing the record as a whole, we find a number of conflicts between Chen’s testimony and corroborating documents that go to the heart of his claim, which the BIA did not explicitly identify.1 1 The BIA pointed to a “conflict” between Chen’s testimony that he was released because his mother paid the police 5000 RMB, and the statement in his Certificate of Release that he was released because of insufficient evidence. However, those two statements do not necessarily conflict. If Chen’s mother paid a 5000 RMB 2 For example, in his asylum statement, and in the testimony he later gave before an immigration judge (IJ), Chen claimed that he converted to Christianity around October 2006. He explained that he graduated from University in July 2006, moved home, and began to look for work. He felt huge pressure to find work, at least in part because his parents worked at a supermarket, and made only enough money to cover their daily expenses. After months of searching for a job without any success, he became depressed, and on October 1, 2006, he began attending a Christian church in his hometown to help deal with his depression.. However, a number of …
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