NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS APR 16 2021 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT TRUNG VAN PHAN, No. 19-70739 Petitioner, Agency No. A213-087-783 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted April 14, 2021** Pasadena, California Before: M. SMITH and IKUTA, Circuit Judges, and STEELE,*** District Judge. Trung Van Phan (Phan) petitions for review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). The BIA affirmed the Immigration Judge’s (IJ’s) * 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 without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable John E. Steele, United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida, sitting by designation. adverse credibility finding as to Phan’s asylum and withholding claims and affirmed the IJ’s decision to deny relief pursuant to the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Because the parties are familiar with the facts, we do not recount them here, except as necessary to provide context to our ruling. We DENY the petition for review. 1. An IJ must “[c]onsider[] the totality of the circumstances[] and all relevant factors” in determining an applicant’s credibility. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii). “We review the IJ and BIA’s adverse credibility finding for substantial evidence.” Solo-Olarte v. Holder, 555 F.3d 1089, 1091 (9th Cir. 2009). “Substantial evidence is more than a mere scintilla. It means such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.” Ibarra-Flores v. Gonzales, 439 F.3d 614, 618 (9th Cir. 2006) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). We must “uphold the BIA’s findings unless the evidence compels a contrary result.” Jie Cui v. Holder, 712 F.3d 1332, 1336 (9th Cir. 2013). The IJ and BIA relied on a number of factors in determining that Phan was not credible. For example, the BIA affirmed the IJ’s ruling that Phan’s inability to “remember which European countries he traveled through in order to reach the United States . . . was implausible, especially considering that [Phan] has graduated from a four-year college.” “Although ‘speculation and conjecture’ alone cannot sustain an adverse credibility finding, an IJ must be allowed to exercise common sense in rejecting a petitioner’s testimony even if the IJ cannot point to specific, 2 contrary evidence in the record to refute it.” Jibril v. Gonzales, 423 F.3d 1129, 1135 (9th Cir. 2005). We agree that the IJ could exercise his common sense and decide that Phan’s inability to remember a single country through which he traveled undermined his testimony. Additionally, Phan’s testimony was evasive at times. Phan did not provide a direct answer to the IJ’s question: “[W]hen was the last time the [Vietnamese] police contacted your parents?” Such evasive testimony can form the basis for an adverse credibility finding. See Bingxu Jin v. …
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