NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 22 2021 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MIN RAJ NEUPANE, No. 16-72566 Petitioner, Agency No. A099-910-412 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted March 2, 2021 San Francisco, California Before: BALDOCK,** WARDLAW, and BERZON, Circuit Judges. Min Raj Neupane seeks review of a final order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing Neupane’s appeal of an Immigration Judge’s (IJ’s) denial of his application for asylum. We reverse and remand for further proceedings. * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Bobby R. Baldock, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, sitting by designation. We review adverse credibility determinations for substantial evidence. Iman v. Barr, 972 F.3d 1058, 1064 (9th Cir. 2020). Although this review is deferential, we require adverse credibility determinations to be supported by “specific and cogent reasons” considered “in light of ‘the totality of the circumstances.’” Id. at 1064, 1065 (quoting Shrestha v. Holder, 590 F.3d 1034, 1040 (9th Cir. 2010)). Where, as here, the BIA issues a decision that adopts part of the IJ’s reasoning, we review the reasons “explicitly identified by the BIA, and then examine the reasoning articulated in the IJ’s . . . decision in support of those reasons. . . . [W]e do not review those parts of the IJ’s adverse credibility finding that the BIA did not identify as ‘most significant.’” Lai v. Holder, 773 F.3d 966, 970 (9th Cir. 2014) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Tekle v. Mukasey, 533 F.3d 1044, 1051 (9th Cir. 2008)). Here, the BIA relied on only two aspects of the IJ’s adverse credibility determination: asserted inconsistencies between Neupane’s oral testimony and the passport pages included in the record, and in Neupane’s testimony regarding when he received a letter confirming his membership in the Tarun Dal. On review of the record and the IJ opinion, neither of these reasons support an adverse credibility determination. 1. First, the presence of Iran entry stamps, and the “lack of any stamps [on the passport pages submitted] showing [Neupane’s] entry or exit into Dubai,” do 2 not support an adverse credibility determination. When asked where he had travelled on his current passport, Neupane responded that he had travelled to Dubai and Iran. This statement was consistent with his previous testimony, in which he stated that he had travelled only to Qatar and perhaps India on a previous, expired passport. Although the BIA opinion states that Neupane mentioned Iran only after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) lawyer submitted into evidence the passport pages showing stamps for Iran, the transcript shows otherwise: the Iran- stamped pages were submitted after, not before, Neupane stated that he had travelled to Iran on his new passport.1 Nor does …
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