Case ID: f-appx_585/html/0428-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SUDAN ZHANG, Petitioner, v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 11-70530.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted Oct. 9, 2014.
    
    Filed Oct. 14, 2014.
    Joan Xie, Esquire, Law Office of Joan Xie, New York, NY, for Petitioner.
    Kimberly A. Burdge, Esquire, Trial, OIL, DOJ-U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, Chief Counsel Ice, Office of the Chief Counsel Department of Homeland Security, San Francisco, CA, for Respondent.
    Before: HAWKINS and GRABER, Circuit Judges, and SEDWICK, District Judge.
    
      
       The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
    
      
       The Honorable John W. Sedwick, United States District Judge for the District of Alaska, sitting by designation.
    
   MEMORANDUM

Petitioner Sudan Zhang, a native and citizen of China, petitions for review of an order, issued by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), dismissing her appeal from an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) decision denying her application for asylum and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). The REAL ID Act governs this case. Reviewing for substantial evidence the agency’s adverse credibility determination, Shrestha v. Holder, 590 F.3d 1034, 1039 (9th Cir.2010), we deny the petition for review.

1. Substantial evidence supports the IJ’s adverse credibility determination, which the BIA affirmed. For example, the IJ observed that Petitioner’s demeanor changed to one of “confusion and indecisiveness” when asked about her abortion certificate. “We give ‘special deference’ to a credibility determination that is based on demeanor.” Jibril v. Gonzales, 423 F.3d 1129, 1137 (9th Cir.2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). The IJ identified several inconsistencies between the narrative in Petitioner’s asylum application and her testimony, including inconsistencies about her parents’ knowledge of her relationship and about her boyfriend’s presence when she conducted pregnancy tests. Although the IJ need not rely only on inconsistencies that “go to the heart of’ Petitioner’s claim, those inconsistencies in fact do go to the central question whether her abortion was forced, so we accord them “great weight.” Shrestha, 590 F.3d at 1046-47. In the absence of credible testimony, Petitioner’s asylum claim fails. Farah v. Ashcroft, 348 F.3d 1153, 1156 (9th Cir.2003).

2. Because Petitioner’s CAT claim rests on the same testimony that the IJ and the BIA found not credible, and because no other evidence in the record supports the argument that she is more likely than not to be tortured if returned to China, her CAT claim also fails. Id. at 1157.

DENIED. 
      
       -phis; disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.