NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 21a0549n.06 No. 21-3142 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED QIUWEI CHEN, ) Nov 30, 2021 ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk Petitioner, ) ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW v. ) FROM THE UNITED STATES ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, ) APPEALS ) Respondent. ) ) BEFORE: McKEAGUE, GRIFFIN, and KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judges. GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge. Petitioner Qiuwei Chen, a native and citizen of China, entered the United States as a temporary business visitor, began regularly attending the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and ultimately converted to the Mormon religion. After overstaying her visa, she filed applications for asylum and withholding of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act and for relief under the Convention Against Torture, contending China will persecute and torture her upon return on account of her religious beliefs. An immigration judge found her applications unmeritorious, and the Board of Immigration Appeals agreed. We deny her petition for review. I. The Immigration and Nationality Act empowers the Attorney General to grant asylum to applicants who meet the Act’s definition of “refugee.” See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(42), 1158(b). “Ordinarily, there are two ways in which an applicant may qualify as a refugee: either by No. 21-3142, Chen v. Garland demonstrating that she has a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of a protected characteristic or by demonstrating that she has suffered past persecution—which gives rise to a rebuttable presumption that she has a well-founded fear of future persecution.” Yousif v. Lynch, 796 F.3d 622, 628 (6th Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted). The term “persecution” “requires more than a few isolated incidents of verbal harassment or intimidation, unaccompanied by any physical punishment, infliction of harm, or significant deprivation of liberty” and typically includes actions like “detention, arrest, interrogation, prosecution, imprisonment, illegal searches, confiscation of property, surveillance, beatings, or torture.” Kukalo v. Holder, 744 F.3d 395, 400 (6th Cir. 2011) (citations omitted). Chen’s petition deals only with the Board’s conclusion that she did not establish a well- founded fear of future persecution on account of religion.1 There are two components to a petitioner’s required future-persecution showing: the fear “must be both subjectively genuine and objectively reasonable.” Mikhailevitch v. I.N.S., 146 F.3d 384, 389 (6th Cir. 1998). One way to demonstrate this is “by establishing a likelihood of the [petitioner’s] being singled out individually for persecution on the basis of a protected ground.” Trujillo Diaz v. Sessions, 880 F.3d 244, 250 (6th Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks omitted). This requires more than “speculative conclusions or mere assertions of fear of possible persecution”; instead, a petitioner “must offer reasonably specific information showing a real threat of individual persecution.” Mapouya v. Gonzales, 487 F.3d 396, 412 (6th Cir. 2007) (citation omitted). Absent this showing, a petitioner 1 The immigration judge found that she did not suffer past persecution, and she did not challenge that finding to the Board or to us here. Additionally, the Board found that …
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