FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT March 4, 2021 _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert SHUN CHEN NI, Clerk of Court Petitioner, v. No. 20-9520 (Petition for Review) ROBERT M. WILKINSON, Acting Attorney General of the United States, * Respondent. _________________________________ ORDER AND JUDGMENT * * _________________________________ Before BACHARACH, Circuit Judge, LUCERO, Senior Circuit Judge, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge. _________________________________ * During the pendency of Mr. Ni’s petition for review, Mr. Robert M. Wilkinson became Acting Attorney General of the United States. We’ve thus substituted General Wilkinson as the respondent. See Fed. R. App. P. 43(c)(2). ** We conclude that oral argument would not materially help us to decide the appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2)(C); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). So we have decided the appeal based on the record and the parties’ briefs. Our order and judgment does not constitute binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. But the order and judgment may be cited for its persuasive value if otherwise appropriate. See Fed. R. App. P. 32.1(a); 10th Cir. R. 32.1(A). The issue here involves the scope of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ discretion over motions to reopen. This issue emerged after two Chinese citizens, Mr. Shun Chen Ni and his wife (Ms. Liying Qiu), had applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture based on fear of Chinese persecution against Christians. The Immigration Judge and Board of Immigration Appeals denied the couple’s applications. Both Mr. Ni and Ms. Qiu then sought to reopen their proceedings, claiming that conditions in China had worsened for Christians. The motions to reopen were denied, and Mr. Ni and Ms. Qiu filed petitions for review. We denied Mr. Ni’s petition for review, reasoning that China’s oppression of Christians had not materially changed. Ni v. Sessions, 702 F. App’x 674, 676 (10th Cir. 2017) (unpublished). Though we had denied Mr. Ni’s petition for review, we granted his wife’s, concluding that the Board of Immigration Appeals had erred in downplaying her evidence of increased persecution against Christians from 2011 to 2015. Qiu v. Sessions, 870 F.3d 1200, 1202–04, 1206 (10th Cir. 2017). After we determined that conditions in China had materially worsened for Christians, Mr. Ni moved again for reopening. Despite our opinion in his wife’s case, the Board of Immigration Appeals concluded 2 again that Mr. Ni had failed to show a material change in country conditions. This conclusion is unsupportable. Mr. Ni’s evidence of worsening conditions in China largely mirrored his wife’s evidence, which had led us to grant her petition for review. Mr. Ni’s evidence was even stronger than his wife’s because China had recently adopted a regulatory crackdown on practicing Christians. We thus grant Mr. Ni’s petition for review. I. We apply the abuse-of-discretion standard to the Board’s determination that conditions in China did not materially worsen. Mr. Ni is seeking review of his second motion …
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