FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION SEP 13 2021 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MARCOS CARDENAS LOPEZ, No. 20-72928 Petitioner, Agency No. A206-681-356 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted August 31, 2021 San Francisco, California Before: RAWLINSON and BYBEE, Circuit Judges, and CARDONE,** District Judge. Petitioner Marcos Cardenas Lopez, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’s (BIA) decision affirming the * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Kathleen Cardone, United States District Judge for the Western District of Texas, sitting by designation. Immigration Judge’s (IJ) denial of his application for withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). We deny the petition. We review “denials of asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT relief for substantial evidence and will uphold a denial supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole.” Ling Huang v. Holder, 744 F.3d 1149, 1152 (9th Cir. 2014) (citations and quotations omitted). “Where, as here, the BIA cites Burbano and also provides its own review of the evidence and law, we review both the IJ’s and the BIA’s decisions.” Aguilar Fermin v. Barr, 958 F.3d 887, 891 (9th Cir. 2020) (quoting Ali v. Holder, 637 F.3d 1025, 1028 (9th Cir. 2011)). 1. This case primarily turns on whether Cardenas Lopez’s testimony before the IJ was credible. Cardenas Lopez is Triqui, an indigenous people native to Oaxaca, and he testified he fears returning to Mexico because he anticipates persecution at the hands of the Movimiento de Unificación y Lucha Triqui (MULT), a Triqui paramilitary organization that has killed or harmed several members of his family in Mexico due to his family’s opposition to MULT. The BIA affirmed the IJ’s determination that this testimony was not credible because it was inconsistent with Cardenas Lopez’s Form I-867A. Cardenas Lopez attempted to enter the United States in June 2014, but was apprehended by Customs and 2 Border Protection (CBP). In his Form I-867A—which is a record of a CBP officer’s interview with Cardenas Lopez that Cardenas Lopez initialed on each page and signed—Cardenas Lopez states that his reason for coming to the US is that he “wanted to come work to [sic] the US” and “to seek employment.” We hold that the IJ’s credibility determination was supported by substantial evidence. Cardenas Lopez was confronted with the inconsistency on cross- examination and claimed that the officer stated “they all say that” and recorded incorrect information. The IJ acknowledged this explanation, but rejected it. “If the IJ reasonably rejects the alien’s explanation, . . . the IJ may properly rely on the inconsistency as support for an adverse credibility determination.” Rizk v. Holder, 629 F.3d 1083, 1088 (9th Cir. 2011). The IJ’s rejection …
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