NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 18 2022 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT YUNXIA ZHOU, No. 15-73309 Petitioner, Agency No. A089-722-973 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted March 17, 2022 Las Vegas, Nevada Before: D.M. FISHER,** BENNETT, and KOH, Circuit Judges. Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge BENNETT. Yunxia Zhou, a native and citizen of China, seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) order affirming the denial of her application for * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable D. Michael Fisher, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting by designation. asylum, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).1 Zhou contends that she fears police retribution if she returns to China because of her previous protest of the country’s coercive family planning practices. The immigration judge (IJ) found Zhou not credible, and the BIA upheld that adverse credibility determination. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a). We grant the petition and remand for further proceedings. The IJ cited six grounds for determining that Zhou was not credible. Of those six grounds, the BIA relied on three in affirming the IJ’s credibility determination—two internal inconsistencies and one omission of corroborating evidence. We conclude that only one of the inconsistencies is supported by substantial evidence and that the corroborating evidence should not have been evaluated as part of the initial credibility determination. The IJ and BIA found Zhou’s testimony that she went to the Chinese consulate in Chicago in 2009 to get a new passport “undercut[] her claim of a fear of persecution upon her return to China.” Substantial evidence supports this conclusion. Zhou explained that she visited the consulate because she needed identification to get a job and support her daughter. Although this explanation is plausible, Zhou testified in 2012 that she had not worked. Zhou also argues that the 1 Zhou applied for withholding of removal but waives her appeal on the denial of that application. 2 Chinese government was already aware of her travel to the United States. But the record does not contain any evidence that the Chinese government was aware Zhou was still in the United States past the expiration of her visa. The IJ and BIA were, thus, well within the bounds of reason to conclude Zhou’s desire for a job could not reasonably outweigh her fear of returning to a persecuting country. Substantial evidence, however, does not support the IJ and BIA’s conclusion that Zhou’s willingness to return to China after several trips outside the country in 2002 after her alleged forced abortion “undermines the credibility” of her asylum claim. The BIA focuses on Zhou’s willingness to return to China after having already suffered a forced abortion, but …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals