FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT JIANG GUAN, No. 17-71966 Petitioner, Agency No. v. A206-341-685 WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. OPINION On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted February 4, 2019 * Pasadena, California Filed May 30, 2019 Before: Ronald M. Gould and Jacqueline H. Nguyen, Circuit Judges, and Roger T. Benitez, ** District Judge. Opinion by Judge Nguyen * The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). ** The Honorable Roger T. Benitez, United States District Judge for the Southern District of California, sitting by designation. 2 GUAN V. BARR SUMMARY *** Immigration The panel denied Guan Chiang’s petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ denial of asylum and withholding of removal on the basis that there were serious reasons for believing he committed a serious nonpolitical crime, and granted in part the petition as to the Board’s denial of protection under the Convention Against Torture, and remanded. The panel held that there were serious reasons to believe that Guan committed a serious nonpolitical crime, where he was involved in a financial scheme embezzling public funds. The panel held that Guan was therefore statutorily ineligible for asylum and withholding of removal. As to the issue of whether Guan’s crime was nonpolitical, the panel held that Guan did not rebut the presumption that his embezzlement crime was a serious nonpolitical crime because he failed to establish that it had a political aspect or objective, and admitted that his involvement in the scheme stemmed from purely economic reasons. Rejecting Guan’s contention that his crime was political in nature because the accusations against him were pretextual, the panel explained that Guan conflated a politically motivated prosecution with a politically motivated crime. *** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. GUAN V. BARR 3 As to the issue of whether there were “serious reasons” or probable cause to believe that Guan committed a serious nonpolitical crime, the panel held that there was probable cause, where Guan testified that he knew from the beginning that the purpose of the scheme was for public money to be embezzled and that the scheme was illegal. The panel also held that Guan failed to establish that he was deprived of due process at his hearings, or that his counsel provided him with ineffective assistance. The panel held that Guan failed to meet his burden for CAT protection based on his fear of torture in connection with his possible disclosure of alleged corruption by Chinese government officials, explaining that Guan had not identified any actions that he took in the United States to expose the alleged corruption by Chinese government officials, and torture does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to lawful sanctions, including the death penalty. However, the ...
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