FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION OCT 15 2010
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U .S. C O U R T OF APPE ALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
CHANGRONG HE, No. 06-71424
Petitioner, Agency No. A097-856-065
v.
MEMORANDUM *
ERIC H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General,
Respondent.
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Argued and Submitted October 5, 2010
Pasadena, California
Before: FISHER and BYBEE, Circuit Judges, and STROM, District Judge.**
Petitioner Changrong He, a native and citizen of China, petitions for review
of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), which summarily
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
**
The Honorable Lyle E. Strom, Senior United States District Judge for
the District of Nebraska, sitting by designation.
affirmed the finding of the immigration judge (“IJ”) that petitioner was not
credible. We deny the petition.
The Court reviews the IJ’s decision when the BIA affirms the IJ without an
opinion of its own. See Abebe v. Gonzales, 432 F.3d 1037, 1039 (9th Cir. 2005)
(en banc). The IJ’s credibility determinations are reviewed for substantial
evidence, Cortez-Pineda v. Holder, 610 F.3d 1118, 1124 (9th Cir. 2010), and may
be reversed only if the evidence petitioner presented was “so compelling that no
reasonable fact finder could find that [petitioner] was not credible.” Kin v. Holder,
595 F.3d 1050, 1054 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting Farah v. Ashcroft, 348 F.3d 1153,
1156 (9th Cir. 2003)) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also INS v. Elias-
Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481 n.1 (1992) (“To reverse the BIA finding we must find
that the evidence not only supports that conclusion, but compels it . . . .”). In this
pre-REAL ID Act case, so long as one of the grounds the IJ identified in support of
the adverse credibility determination is supported by substantial evidence and goes
to the heart of petitioner’s claim of persecution, the adverse credibility finding will
be upheld. See Cortez-Pineda, 610 F.3d at 1124 (citing Li v. Ashcroft, 378 F.3d
959, 964 (9th Cir. 2004)).
In this case, the IJ primarily based his adverse credibility finding on
petitioner’s omission from her asylum application that she was employed in China
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by Voice of Asia, a car audio company, and that petitioner had come to the United
States on Voice of Asia’s behalf to conduct business with a company called
Clarion. This omission calls into question whether petitioner experienced the
persecution she alleged the Chinese government perpetrated against her, and thus
goes to the heart of petitioner’s claim of persecution. Substantial evidence
supports the IJ’s adverse credibility determination and the evidence does not
compel a contrary conclusion.
Because at least one of the grounds the IJ identified in support of his adverse
credibility determination was supported by substantial evidence and went to the
heart of petitioner’s claim of persecution, the petition is DENIED.
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