NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS AUG 20 2019 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT YONGBIN ZOU, No. 15-71431 Petitioner, Agency No. A088-487-413 v. WILLIAM BARR, Attorney General MEMORANDUM* Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted August 16, 2019** Pasadena, California Before: SCHROEDER and R. NELSON, Circuit Judges, and LEFKOW,*** District Judge. Yongbin Zou petitions for review of the judgment of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) dismissing his appeal after an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denied his petition for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection 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 this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable Joan H. Lefkow, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation. the Convention Against Torture, based on an adverse credibility finding. “We review adverse credibility findings under the substantial evidence standard.” Rivera v. Mukasey, 508 F.3d 1271, 1274 (9th Cir. 2007). Substantial evidence requires “only such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.” Garcia v. Holder, 749 F.3d 785, 789 (2014) (internal citations omitted). Our task is solely to determine whether substantial evidence supports the BIA’s findings. See Singh v. Lynch, 802 F.3d 972, 974-75 (9th Cir. 2015) “Because credibility determinations are findings of fact by the IJ, they ‘are conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.’” Rizk v. Holder, 629 F.3d 1083, 1087 (9th Cir. 2011) (quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B) (2000)). “To reverse such a finding, we must find that the evidence not only supports a contrary conclusion, but compels it.” Id. (internal citations and punctuation marks omitted). In other words, “we must uphold the IJ’s adverse credibility determination so long as one of the identified grounds is supported by substantial evidence and goes to the heart of the alien’s claim of persecution.’” Id. (internal citations and punctuation marks omitted). Further, where, as here, the BIA reviews the IJ’s decision for clear error and relies on the IJ’s opinion as a statement of reasons, we “look to the IJ’s oral decision as a guide to what lay behind the BIA’s conclusion.” Tekle v. Mukasey, 2 533 F.3d 1044, 1051 (9th Cir. 2008). In so doing, we review the reasons explicitly identified by the BIA and then examine the reasoning articulated in the IJ’s oral decision in support of those reasons. Id. We deny the petition. The BIA made several findings with respect to Zou’s credibility that are supported by substantial evidence. Particularly, we find the following to be supported: (1) the implausibility of a small clinic in China providing a CAT scan but not paperwork evidencing treatment; (2) the implausibility of Zou escaping his home town and making it past airport security while under ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals