PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _______________ No. 20-3353 _______________ CHA LIANG, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA _______________ On Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (No. A201-123-167) Immigration Judge: Amit Chugh _______________ Argued: July 7, 2021 Before: AMBRO, JORDAN, and BIBAS, Circuit Judges. (Filed: October 12, 2021) _______________ David Yan [ARGUED] LAW OFFICES OF DAVID YAN 3606 30th Street, Suite 11E Long Island City, NY 11106 Counsel for Petitioner Lance L. Jolley [ARGUED] Anthony C. Payne U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE OFFICE OF IMMIGRATION LITIGATION P.O. Box 878 Ben Franklin Station Washington, DC 20044 Counsel for Respondent _______________ OPINION OF THE COURT _______________ BIBAS, Circuit Judge. Divide and conquer is a good military strategy but a bad judicial one. Judges must consider how related facts weave to- gether into a narrative. Chinese officials caught Cha Liang practicing his faith, so they beat, jailed, and then threatened him. When he sought asy- lum, the Board of Immigration Appeals minimized the threats and physical abuse as discrete incidents. But Liang’s twenty- minute beating and fifteen days in jail made the later threats 2 more menacing. Because the Board should not have ignored this context, we will grant the petition and remand. I. BACKGROUND Liang is from China. In 1997, he learned that his then- girlfriend (now wife) was expecting their child. But because they had not yet married, Chinese government officials forced her to abort their baby. To protest the forced abortion, Liang met with a local official. A scuffle ensued. It ended when a security guard slammed a door on his hand, scarring it. Shattered, Liang found solace in Christianity. He began at- tending underground church meetings. In 2000, Chinese police burst into an underground-church meeting and declared it an illegal religious gathering. They arrested several people, in- cluding Liang, and brought them to the police station. At the station, the police abused Liang. They stripped him down to his underpants. They bent him over and cuffed his hands behind his back. Then, they beat him. They held him by his hair and struck him in the face and ears. They pounded his back and legs. They pummeled him so hard, for twenty minutes, that he suffers hearing loss to this day. After that, they locked him in a cold cell, gave him little to eat, and kept him there for fifteen days. Before letting Liang go, the police warned him: if we catch you in church again, we will throw you back in jail. Once out, Liang kept going to church. But to avoid the police, the group met less often and constantly changed where it gathered. 3 Almost a decade later, Liang fled to the United States. He sought asylum, claiming both political persecution (based on the 1997 scuffle over the forced abortion) and religious perse- cution (based on the 2000 arrest, beating, jailing, and threats). At the hearing, the government seemed to concede past …
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