Francisco Jaramillo-Laureano v. William Barr


NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 11 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT FRANCISCO JARAMILLO-LAUREANO, No. 17-71498 Petitioner, Agency No. A205-054-182 v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted February 5, 2020** Pasadena, California Before: THOMAS, Chief Judge, and WARDLAW and NGUYEN, Circuit Judges. Francisco Jaramillo-Laureano (Jaramillo) petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) order upholding an Immigration Judge’s (IJ) finding that he had filed a frivolous asylum application and was not entitled to asylum, withholding of removal, or protection under the Convention Against * 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). Torture (CAT). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1), and we deny the petition. 1. We review the IJ’s adverse credibility determination for substantial evidence and will uphold it “unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.” Bhattarai v. Lynch, 835 F.3d 1037, 1042 (9th Cir. 2016). Where, as here, an IJ gives several reasons for his adverse credibility finding, it must be upheld “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.” Rizk v. Holder, 629 F.3d 1083, 1087 (9th Cir. 2011) (alterations omitted). In post- REAL ID Act cases like this, “[a]lthough inconsistencies no longer need to go to the heart of the petitioner’s claim, when an inconsistency is at the heart of the claim it doubtless is of great weight.” Shrestha v. Holder, 590 F.3d 1034, 1046–47 (9th Cir. 2010). Jaramillo’s claims for relief from removal centered around an incident in which his sister-in-law and son were allegedly kidnapped in Mexico. Substantial evidence supports the IJ’s finding that Jaramillo testified inconsistently about the timing of this kidnapping and whether it was the motivating factor behind his decision to bring his family to the United States. Jaramillo first testified that the kidnapping occurred in 2006 or 2008 and that it led him to begin to bring his wife and children to the United States. Jaramillo’s 2 asylum application listed most of his family members as having entered the United States in 2009, which would have been consistent with his initial testimony. But after being confronted with evidence that the kidnapping had instead taken place in 2011—after most of his family had already left Mexico—Jaramillo changed his story and claimed that threats and requests for payment that preceded the kidnapping were what had actually motivated him to bring his family to the United States. This inconsistent testimony went to the heart of Jaramillo’s claims for relief from removal and therefore provided a sufficient basis for the IJ’s adverse credibility determination.1 Zamanov v. Holder, 649 F.3d 969, 973 ...

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