UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 11-2299
FANG PING HUANG,
Petitioner,
v.
ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., Attorney General,
Respondent.
On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration
Appeals.
Submitted: June 1, 2012 Decided: July 2, 2012
Before GREGORY, KEENAN, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.
Petition denied by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Joshua Bardavid, New York, New York, for Petitioner. Stuart
Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Blair T. O’Connor,
Assistant Director, Edward C. Durant, Office of Immigration
Litigation, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington,
D.C., for Respondent.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Fang Ping Huang, a native and citizen of the People’s
Republic of China, petitions for review of an order of the Board
of Immigration Appeals (“Board”) dismissing his appeal from the
immigration judge’s order denying his applications for asylum,
withholding from removal and withholding under the Convention
Against Torture (“CAT”). We deny the petition for review.
An alien has the burden of showing he is eligible for
relief. In order to show eligibility for asylum, he must show
that he was subjected to past persecution or has a well-founded
fear of persecution on account of a protected ground such as
political opinion. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(1) (2012). If the
applicant establishes past persecution, he has the benefit of a
rebuttable presumption of a well-founded fear of persecution.
This court will uphold the Board’s decision unless it
is manifestly contrary to the law and an abuse of discretion.
The standard of review of the agency’s findings is narrow and
deferential. Factual findings are affirmed if supported by
substantial evidence. Substantial evidence exists to support a
finding unless the evidence was such that any reasonable
adjudicator would have been compelled to conclude to the
contrary. Therefore, we review an adverse credibility
determination for substantial evidence and give broad deference
to the Board’s credibility determination. The Board and the
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immigration judge must provide specific, cogent reasons for
making an adverse credibility determination. We recognize that
omissions, inconsistent statements, contradictory evidence, and
inherently improbable testimony are appropriate bases for making
an adverse credibility determination. The existence of only a
few such inconsistencies, omissions, or contradictions can be
sufficient for the Board to make an adverse credibility
determination as to the alien’s entire testimony regarding past
persecution. An inconsistency can serve as a basis for an
adverse credibility determination even if it does not go to the
heart of the alien’s claim. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii)
(2006); see also Djadjou v. Holder, 662 F.3d 265, 272-74 (4th
Cir. 2011) (case citations omitted). An adverse credibility
finding can support a conclusion that the alien did not
establish past persecution. See Dankam v. Gonzales, 495 F.3d
113, 121-23 (4th Cir. 2007); see also Chen v. Attorney General,
463 F.3d 1228, 1231 (11th Cir. 2006) (denial of asylum relief
can be based solely upon an adverse credibility finding).
We conclude that substantial evidence supports the
adverse credibility finding. The immigration judge listed
specific and cogent reasons in support of the finding. We note
that the immigration judge was not obligated to accept Huang’s
reasons for the inconsistencies, even if the reasons were
plausible. See Dankam, 495 F.3d at 122. We further conclude,
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that after reviewing the independent evidence, including the
State Department’s report, the record does not compel a
different result. *
We deny the petition for review. We dispense with
oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are
adequately presented in the materials before the court and
argument would not aid the decisional process.
PETITION DENIED
*
Huang has abandoned any challenge to the denial of relief
under the CAT by failing to raise an issue in his brief.
Accordingly, this court will not review this ruling. See
Ngarurih v. Ashcroft, 371 F.3d 182, 189 n.7 (4th Cir. 2004)
(finding that the failure to raise a challenge in an opening
brief results in abandonment of that challenge); Edwards v. City
of Goldsboro, 178 F.3d 231, 241 n.6 (4th Cir. 1999) (same).
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