Case ID: f-appx_601/html/0486-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

JIAQUAN WU, Petitioner, v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 11-73040.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted Feb. 5, 2015.
    
    Filed Feb. 20, 2015.
    
      Thomas John Mayer, Esquire, Law Office of Thomas J. Mayer, San Gabriel, CA, for Petitioner.
    Puneet Cheema, Trial, Lindsay Corliss, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Respondent.
    Before: PREGERSON and NGUYEN, Circuit Judges and CARR, Senior District Judge.
    
      
       The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
    
      
       The Honorable James G. Carr, Senior District Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, sitting by designation.
    
   MEMORANDUM

Petitioner Jiaquan Wu petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) denial of his applications for asylum and withholding of removal. We affirm.

1. Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s conclusion that Wu failed to demonstrate that he has been subject to past persecution or has a well-founded fear of future persecution, which he must do in order to be granted asylum. Chinese government officials physically harmed Wu on only one occasion, in 1990, for his resistance to China’s family planning policies. This one incident is likely insufficient to rise to the level of past persecution. See, e.g., Gu v. Gonzales, 454 F.3d 1014, 1019-21 (9th Cir.2006); Prasad v. INS, 47 F.3d 336, 339 (9th Cir.1995). Similarly, Wu did not suffer substantial economic deprivation as a result of his run-in with authorities: five years after the incident, Wu was self-employed and earning $85,000 USD annually. Reversal is not warranted on the grounds that the BIA found Wu’s testimony lacked credibility because, in reviewing the IJ’s decision, the BIA assumed credibility. Barraza Rivera v. INS, 913 F.2d 1443, 1449-50 (9th Cir.1990).

Wu’s claim that he has a well-founded fear of future persecution also fails: it is unlikely his middle-aged wife, who has an IUD, will become pregnant again; his resistance to Chinese family planning officials occurred more than twenty years ago; and China does not have a pattern or practice of persecuting similarly-situated Christians.

2. The BIA did not err in denying Wu’s application for withholding of removal. Because Wu failed to meet the “well-founded fear” of persecution standard required to obtain asylum, he cannot meet the more stringent “clear probability” standard necessary for withholding of removal eligibility. Ghaly v. INS, 58 F.3d 1425, 1429 (9th Cir.1995) (citing Arriaga-Barrientos v. INS, 925 F.2d 1177, 1180 (9th Cir.1991)).

AFFIRM. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.