Case ID: f-appx_477/html/0799-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

ZHU QING CHEN, Petitioner, v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., United States Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 11-2615-ag.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    April 27, 2012.
    
      Eric Y. Zheng, New York, NY, for Petitioner.
    Tony West, Assistant Attorney General; Melissa Neiman-Kelting, Senior Litigation Counsel; Christopher Buchanan, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.
    Present: BARRINGTON D. PARKER, PETER W. HALL and DENNY CHIN, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION of this petition for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) decision, it is hereby ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED, that the petition for review is DENIED.

Petitioner Zhu Qing Chen, a native and citizen of the People’s Republic of China, seeks review of the June 9, 2011, order of the BIA denying her motion to reopen. In re Zhu Qing Chen, No. [ AXXX XXX XXX ] (B.I.A. June 9, 2011). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and procedural history of the case.

We review for abuse of discretion the BIA’s denial of Chen’s motion to reopen as untimely and number-barred. See Kaur v. BIA, 418 F.3d 232, 233 (2d Cir.2005) (per curiam). An alien may file one motion to reopen, generally no later than 90 days after the date on which the final administrative decision was rendered in the proceedings sought to be reopened. 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(A), (C)(1); 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(2). The time limitation does not apply to a motion to reopen if it is “based on changed circumstances arising in the country of nationality or in the country to which deportation has been ordered, if such evidence is material and was not available and could not have been discovered or presented at the previous hearing.” 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(3)(h); see also 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(ii). There is no dispute that Chen’s 2011 motion was untimely and number-barred; she had previously filed one motion to reopen, and the final administrative order was issued in 2007. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(A), (C)(1); 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(2). The BIA did not abuse its discretion when it held Chen failed to establish changed circumstances in China .that would render inapplicable the time limitation for filing a motion to re-open.

First, the BIA reasonably found, based on Chen’s own submissions, that conditions in China insofar as persecution of unregistered religious groups is concerned had not changed to any significant degree since well before Chen left the country in 2001. Substantial evidence supports, and the BIA.did not abuse its discretion in determining, that Chen’s evidence failed to show that China consistently and more harshly implemented a policy of religious repression in all its provinces or that its suppression of underground churches in her native Fujian province has increased since 2005. See Jian Hui Shao v. Mukasey, 546 F.3d 138, 169, 174 (2d Cir.2008) (when the BIA considers relevant evidence of country conditions in evaluating a motion to reopen, this Court reviews the BIA’s factual findings under the substantial evidence standard); see also id. at 174 (affirming the BIA’s case-by-case analysis in determining a well-founded fear of persecution when it finds wide variances in how policies are enforced). Nor did the BIA abuse its discretion by summarizing the evidence it considered in this regard; the BIA was not required to parse it point by point. See Wei Guang Wang v. BIA, 437 F.3d 270, 273-75 (2d Cir.2006); Xiao Ji Chen v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 471 F.3d 315, 338 n. 17 (2d Cir.2006).

Second, yet somewhat in the same vein, Chen argues that based on her own 2010 conversion to Christianity she will be subject to the Chinese government’s human rights abuses in the form of religious persecution. The BIA’s determination that this evidence of Chen’s religious conversion does not demonstrate a material change in country conditions is also not an abuse of discretion. See Luna v. Holder, 637 F.3d 85, 102-3 (2d Cir.2011). As we have previously held, “The law is clear that a petitioner must show changed country conditions in order to exceed the 90-day filing requirement for seeking to reopen removal proceedings. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(3)(h). A self-induced change in personal circumstances cannot suffice.” Wei Guang Wang, 437 F.3d at 274.

In sum, the BIA did not abuse its discretion in denying Chen’s untimely and number-barred motion to reopen. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229a (c)(7)(A), (C)(1), (ii); 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(e)(2), (3).

For the foregoing reasons, the petition for review is DENIED. As we have completed our review, any stay of removal that the Court previously granted in this petition is VACATED, and any pending motion for a stay of removal in this petition is DENIED as moot. Any pending request for oral argument in this petition is DENIED in accordance with Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 34(a)(2), and Second Circuit Local Rule 34.1(b).