NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 24 2023 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT YEREMI JEFFERSON EDUARDO No. 20-72669 GARCIA-QUEZADA, Agency No. A208-890-305 Petitioner, v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted November 19, 2021 Submission Vacated November 24, 2021 Resubmitted March 23, 2023 San Francisco, California Before: PAEZ, WATFORD, and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges. Yeremi Garcia-Quezada, a native and citizen of Guatemala, petitions for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) upholding an immigration judge’s (“IJ’s”) denial of his applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we deny Garcia-Quezada’s petition. We review “factual findings, including adverse credibility decisions, under the deferential substantial evidence standard.” Zhi v. Holder, 751 F.3d 1088, 1091 (9th Cir. 2014). Under this standard, we “must uphold the agency determination unless the evidence compels a contrary conclusion.” Duran-Rodriguez v. Barr, 918 F.3d 1025, 1028 (9th Cir. 2019). The agency is required “to provide specific and cogent reasons for an adverse credibility determination.” Iman v. Barr, 972 F.3d 1058, 1064 (9th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted). In assessing an adverse credibility finding under the REAL ID Act, we “must look to the totality of the circumstances and all relevant factors.” Alam v. Garland, 11 F.4th 1133, 1137 (9th Cir. 2021) (en banc) (cleaned up). Here, the IJ based his adverse credibility finding on inconsistencies between Garcia-Quezada’s sworn statements, portions of those statements that he found implausible, and Garcia-Quezada’s admission to lying under oath in his asylum interview. A particularly concerning issue, according to the IJ, was Garcia- Quezada’s untruthfulness in testifying about his relationship with two of his siblings. In his interview with the Asylum Officer (AO), Garcia-Quezada explained that after his grandmother was murdered, the 18th Street Gang went after him and two of his siblings, threatening to kill his siblings if he didn’t join the gang and to 2 kill him if they didn’t join. When the AO asked if he was still in contact with his siblings, he reported that they talked “every now and then” but “not consistently,” adding that he had last spoken with them “[l]ike one month prior” to the interview and that they had warned him that the gang was still after him. During the hearing before the IJ, however, Garcia-Quezada at first denied having siblings, then denied knowing anything about them. He testified that he had never met them, spoken to them, or lived with them. His earlier statements to the AO, he admitted, were all false—he had lied about his siblings because he was “nervous” and “didn’t know what to answer.” We have previously held that a petitioner’s deliberate decision to lie …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals