NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED OCT 15 2021 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT REN FU WU, No. 20-71949 Petitioner, Agency No. A213-143-252 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted October 13, 2021** Honolulu, Hawaii Before: O’SCANNLAIN, MILLER, and LEE, Circuit Judges. Ren Fu Wu, a native and citizen of China, petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals affirming the denial of his application for asylum and withholding of removal. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1), and we deny the petition. * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision The agency’s denial of relief rested on its adverse credibility finding. Substantial evidence supports that finding. See Garland v. Ming Dai, 141 S. Ct. 1669, 1677 (2021); 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B). First, the immigration judge reasonably found it implausible that Wu and his partner, Xue Mei Zeng, repeatedly attempted to conceive a child outside of marriage for four years after the couple was of age to marry, after family planning officials had previously forced Zeng to have an abortion precisely because the couple had been underage and unmarried. The immigration judge provided Wu an opportunity to address that issue, and Wu responded only that the couple “did not really care about” or “pay much attention” to marriage and that he was “busy with . . . work” and “forgot about it.” The immigration judge reasonably found that explanation wanting. See Lalayan v. Garland, 4 F.4th 822, 833–37 (9th Cir. 2021). The implausibility “reach[es] the heart of [the] claim for relief” and is therefore “‘of great weight.’” Aguilar Fermin v. Barr, 958 F.3d 887, 892 (9th Cir. 2020) (quoting Shrestha v. Holder, 590 F.3d 1034, 1047 (9th Cir. 2010)). Second, the immigration judge reasonably found the timeline and circumstances surrounding Wu’s updating of his household register to be suspicious. Wu testified that he updated his household register in April 2017 because “the characters typed by the staff [were] not very straight and also some without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). 2 dates could not be seen.” But Wu also testified that “in China in the rural area, we don’t really pay much attention or care about” updating records. The immigration judge reasonably found this testimony to be inconsistent. Wu was then directed specifically to address why he waited until 2017 to add his wife and children to the register, even though he had married in 2014 and had two children in 2016. Wu answered that he waited “[b]ecause at that time the children were born . . . so we did it all together.” As the immigration judge found, that explanation did not make sense in light of Wu’s previous explanation: If Wu thought …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals