FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION OCT 8 2021 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT YUDAI MA, No. 20-72275 Petitioner, Agency No. A206-532-063 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted October 6, 2021** Pasadena, California Before: GRABER, CHRISTEN, and OWENS, Circuit Judges. Petitioner Yudai Ma, a native and citizen of China, seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ ("BIA") decision affirming the immigration * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). judge’s ("IJ") denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture ("CAT"). We deny the petition. 1. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s affirmance of the IJ’s adverse credibility determination. See Shrestha v. Holder, 590 F.3d 1034, 1039–1042 (9th Cir. 2010) (stating standard of review). The BIA assessed "the overall conclusion" of the IJ concerning credibility and noted that the IJ "based her adverse credibility determination on the totality of the circumstances." The BIA gave examples of problems that the IJ had noted, but did not reject other reasons offered by the IJ, so we may consider the IJ’s reasoning. Tekle v. Mukasey, 533 F.3d 1044, 1051 (9th Cir. 2008). Petitioner’s testimony was inconsistent with evidence in the record. For example, Petitioner testified that her mother came with her to the United States in 2013. But the mother’s letter does not mention that she had accompanied Petitioner; instead, it states that Petitioner "left China for the U.S." and that the two "talked over the phone and video chat frequently" after the move. Additionally, Petitioner offered inconsistent statements at different points in the proceedings. She told the asylum officer that she did not receive a certificate of her baptism in China, but she testified before the IJ that she did receive such a certificate shortly after her baptism in 2011. As another example, Petitioner told 2 the asylum officer that she did not graduate from high school. But she testified before the IJ that she had in fact graduated from high school. Those inconsistencies provided the agency with an appropriate reason to conclude that Petitioner did not provide credible testimony. The agency permissibly found that Petitioner’s inconsistent statements regarding her asylum claim supported the adverse credibility determination. See Enying Li v. Holder, 738 F.3d 1160, 1163 (9th Cir. 2013) (holding that, in the immigration context, the fact-finder may "disbelieve a witness’s entire testimony if the witness makes a material and conscious falsehood in one aspect of [her] testimony" (emphases omitted)). Further, the IJ relied on, and the BIA held, that some of Petitioner’s testimony was implausible. The agency’s skepticism was supported by substantial evidence. Petitioner’s explanation for why documents that would have been created in 2011 and 2012 were lost …
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