FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION AUG 23 2011
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U.S . CO U RT OF AP PE A LS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
YANYUN REN, No. 07-70701
Petitioner, Agency No. A078-706-866
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 May 5, 2011
Pasadena, California
Before: PREGERSON, FISHER, and BERZON, Circuit Judges.
Yanyun Ren petitions for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration
Appeals (BIA) affirming an Immigration Judge's (IJ) denial of her application for
asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the United Nations Convention
Against Torture (CAT). We deny the petition.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
The IJ provided 'specific and cogent reasons' for the adverse credibility
finding. Kaur v. Gonzales, 418 F.3d 1061, 1064 (9th Cir. 2005). Principally, the
forensic document expert produced a report concluding that the receipt for a fine,
introduced by Ren, was almost surely fraudulent, and, while impossible to
authenticate, the summons offered by Ren may well not have been genuine either.
While testifying, the expert explained in detail how she arrived at her conclusions,
elaborating that there was an estimated 1 in 100,000 chance the receipt was not
fraudulent and a 1 in 200 chance the summons was genuine. Ren produced no
contrary evidence undermining those conclusions. The IJ was therefore justified in
relying on them.
Because these fraudulent documents called into doubt the truthfulness of
Ren's account of her arrest, they went to the heart of her claim, see Kin v. Holder,
595 F.3d 1050, 1058 (9th Cir. 2010), and could support the IJ's adverse credibility
finding. See Yeimane-Berhe v. Ashcroft, 393 F.3d 907, 911 (9th Cir. 2004). Ren
testified that she personally received the summons on the day of her release and
saw the receipt for the fine in her father's hand when he came to get her from
police custody. Ren's argument that she did not µnow the documents were
fraudulent would have required the IJ to accept the unliµely inference that she and
her father received genuine documents, but her father mailed her different,
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fraudulent copies without notifying her they were not the originals. Therefore,
unliµe in Yeimane-Berhe, where someone obtained the faµe document outside the
petitioner's presence and after she was in the United States, and 'no evidence
indicat[ed] that [the petitioner] µnew the document was fraudulent,' id. at 911, the
evidence here supports the conclusion that Ren probably had to be aware the
documents were not genuine. See Khadµa v. Holder, 618 F.3d 996, 1001 (9th Cir.
2010) (holding that expert testimony combined with a petitioner's failure to offer a
plausible explanation for how he obtained a fraudulent newspaper article was
sufficient to support an adverse credibility determination, even where the IJ did not
maµe a specific finding that the petitioner µnew the article was not genuine).
Moreover, unliµe in Yeimane-Berhe, where authentic documentary evidence
corroborated the petitioner's account, and 'nothing else in the record' undermined
the petitioner's credibility, 393 F.3d at 911, the IJ here had other bases to question
Ren's testimony. For instance, Ren's application originally stated she was
detained in Linan, and she did not amend that statement during her asylum office
interview, although she did maµe several other changes to her application. Only
after receiving the summons in the mail from her father did she change the
statement to say she was detained in Kuaian, reconciling her application with the
summons. Ren's suggestion that her first submission might have been a translation
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error does not explain that timing issue; any translation error presumably could
have been caught earlier.
Liµewise, Ren failed to advance evidence corroborating her claims that she
attended church or practiced Christianity in the United States or China. See
Unuaµhaulu v. Gonzales, 416 F.3d 931, 938 (9th Cir. 2005) (acµnowledging that,
'where the IJ has reason to question the applicant's credibility,' a petitioner's
failure 'to produce non-duplicative, material, easily available corroborating
evidence' can support an adverse credibility determination (quotations omitted)).
Although her worµ schedule prevented her from attending church on a weeµly
basis, she testified that she worshiped there every three or four weeµs. Over the
course of the three years she had been in the United States, that attendance rate is
not so infrequent as to prohibit her from obtaining some corroborating
documentation.
In the absence of credible testimony or reliable documentary evidence,
Ren's claims for asylum and withholding fail. Because her CAT claim is also
based on her testimony, it fails as well. See Almaghzar v. Gonzales, 457 F.3d 915,
922-23 (9th Cir. 2006).
PETITION DENIED.
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FILED
No. 07-70701 Ren v. Holder AUG 23 2011
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
PREGERSON, Circuit Judge, Dissenting: U.S . CO U RT OF AP PE A LS
Petitioner Yanyun Ren is a native and citizen of China. Ren converted to
Christianity in 2001. On November 18, 2001, Ren was attending a house church
service when Chinese police arrested her and her fellow congregants. During her
detention, two officers interrogated Ren, accused her of belonging to an 'illegal
gathering,' spreading 'an evil cult,' and 'disturbing social stability.' The officers
demanded that Ren provide information about the organization of the church.
When Ren refused to answer the officers' questions and asµed why she was being
detained, the officers slapped Ren several times and pulled her hair. The officers
then placed Ren in a small cell with two other women. The officers instructed the
two other women in the cell to mistreat Ren. Over the next fifteen days, the two
women in the cell routinely beat Ren, forced her to eat her food off of the floor,
and prevented her from sleeping. Ren was finally released from custody after her
father paid a fine. She left China and ultimately arrived in the United States in
2002. Ren timely applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection
under the Convention Against Torture.
An Immigration Judge (IJ) found that Ren's testimony was not credible, in
reliance, principally, on an expert's testimony about the inauthenticity of
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documents--a summons and a receipt for payment of a fine--Ren submitted with
her application. While the expert had misgivings about the authenticity of the
summons Ren received upon her release, the expert conceded that the
summons--the only document handed directly to Ren--could have been
reproduced on a copier. Additionally, the fine receipt, which the expert more
strongly believed to be counterfeit, was given to Ren's father, outside of Ren's
presence. There is no indication in the record that Ren had possession of the fine
receipt before it was mailed to her by her father after she arrived in the United
States. Moreover, even if both the summons and the fine receipt were fraudulent,
there was no evidence offered, and the IJ made no finding, that Ren µnew that the
documents were not genuine. See Yeimane-Berhe v. Ashcroft, 393 F.3d 907, 911
(9th Cir. 2004).
The other grounds the IJ relied upon for her adverse credibility
determination are either speculative or do not go to the heart of Ren's asylum
claim. See Manimbao v. Ashcroft, 329 F.3d 655, 660 (9th Cir. 2003); Shah v. INS,
220 F.3d 1062, 1071 (9th Cir. 2000). Moreover, the IJ failed to address Ren's
proffered explanations for the perceived inconsistencies, and thus, the IJ's findings
must be disregarded. See Soto-Olarte v. Holder, 555 F.3d 1089, 1091 (9th Cir.
2009); Kaur v. Ashcroft, 379 F.3d 876, 884 (9th Cir. 2004).
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For these reasons, I would grant the petition for review, reverse the adverse
credibility finding, and remand to the BIA for further proceedings. See Teµle v.
Muµasey, 533 F.3d 1044, 1056 (9th Cir. 2008). I therefore respectfully dissent.
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