NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit Chicago, Illinois 60604 Argued July 9, 2019 Decided July 17, 2019 Before MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge No. 19-1101 YANBO LIU, Petition for Review of an Order of the Petitioner, Board of Immigration Appeals. v. No. A087-867-164 WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General of the United States, Respondent. ORDER Yanbo Liu, a 47-year old Christian man from China, seeks asylum and withholding of removal based on his fear that he will face religious persecution if he returns to China. An immigration judge determined that Liu was not credible and denied him relief. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed that decision and dismissed Liu’s appeal. Because substantial evidence, supports the IJ’s adverse credibility finding, we deny Liu’s petition for review. Nearly two decades ago, Liu left China to work in South Korea, where he took a job in a manufacturing plant and, with a colleague named Yong Zhang, began attending a Catholic church. Liu gave inconsistent timelines for these events: he testified before an No. 19-1101 Page 2 IJ that he went to South Korea in 2000 and started going to church in 2004, but he wrote in his asylum application that he went to South Korea in 2003 and was introduced to Christianity in 2006. Upon returning to China in 2007, he studied Christianity at weekly home gatherings with classmates. Police burst in on one gathering, seized the group’s bibles, and beat and arrested Liu and his classmates. Liu again inconsistently recalled when that occurred: he testified that he was arrested, alternatively, in 2008, July 2009, and October 2007; in his application, he wrote that the arrest occurred in February 2009. When the IJ asked about the inconsistent dates, Liu clarified that he began attending weekly gatherings in October 2007. Yet another discrepancy regarding the arrest surfaced: Liu testified at the hearing that police arrested 14 people, though he wrote 16 in his application. Liu testified that police locked him up at the police station, where, for three days, officers interrogated him and periodically kicked and beat him. Liu said first that the police “didn’t ask much,” and he later added that they asked him why the group gathered. In his application for asylum, though, Liu asserted that police questioned him about the dates when he began attending gatherings, the identity of the group’s leaders, the number of participants, and whether the group had international ties. When the IJ asked him to explain the discrepancies in his accounts, Liu said that the events transpired “too long ago” and “most likely” took place as he described them in his application. Liu testified that police fined and released him but called him to report to the police station three to four Sundays per month. At the hearing, Liu also recounted a conversation with his wife, who told him that police ...
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