a totality of circumstances that the inconsistency that were cited by the board do not support an adverse credibility finding there were essentially three inconsistency cited by the board to support their finding the st one is a little the board doesn't really find in find the average screw credibility based on the inconsistency but that he did not immediately disclose this inconsistency to the court and in this case essentially when he was asked the question why is there any consistency here he immediately told them there told the judge that well yes i mean that's why it's not it was there because the middleman had arranged for the house of ridge to be altered so he didn't immediately credibility to slightly different aspect of this is it appropriate for us to consider the value of the money that's right the two thousand and twelve letters from liang and shoes mother since you didn't mention them in your brief thousand and fifteen she says the last time they came was november of two thousand and fourteen but the hearing took place in june of two thousand and sixteen a year and a half later and so during the hearing he was asked are they currently come your heels yes how often every few weeks this is not an inconsistency there is there was a year and a half gap time between the mom's letter when it was written and the hearing itself things can change in a year and a half there is no increase this inconsistency on this portion or not there was past persecution because they got off on this other and yet a current analysis yes i mean the main issue that the board focused on was simply adverse credibility if we're going to move on to perth you know persecution then in my letter  twenty a j i submitted a recent case globe the sessions which spoke about how you know religious persecution must be judged differently i guess than you know it must be just not just basically based on physical harm but actual religious harm the fact that he was had to sign a guarantee letter saying that he could not attend the home church anymore the fact that he had a reporter every week to police and so they could keep an eye on him with respect to do we for purposes of past persecution we sessions they certainly stated that that would be the major relevant factor in religious persecution cases not necessarily whatever physical harm or injury someone might have suffered and i take you back to the adverse credibility  terminations i guess let's say that we were inclined to agree with you on the inconsistency with respect to the frequency of the visits that that would seem maybe the weakest of them but i guess i will confess that i was troubled by it when i read your client's testimony a high school chemistry teacher they seem very basic questions and your clients testimony was completely incoherent i mean i felt even just reading the cold record i would be suspicious of this guy's credibility if you claim to be a chemistry teacher and this is what he came up  this question so help me understand why you think we are we're not obligated to kind of give some deference to the i understand your honor and honestly that testimony was very disappointing i gree but that i think you know i cited the case  s which stood for the proposition that documentary evidence can independently establish the elements of an asylum claim in this case the petitioner submitted two documents the his graduation certificate as well as his teacher qualifications certificate that is hard evidence that we have here and the i g did not make any findings that either of those documents were unreliable in any sense ok so that's number one ok number two i completely understand where you're coming from it was disappointing but  he had been five years removed from being a chemistry teacher a high school chemistry teacher so he had not studied anything about chemistry in five years anderson and that these were somewhat basic questions but i don't think that that speaks overall to whether or not he was an actual chemistry teacher or not i mean i you know sometimes people simply just phrase they just can't think of whatever it is even if it's something that's very simple especially in a in a public speaking context or in something like a like a hearing i think that's having everybody sometimes or you said you know my mind just simply went blank i just couldn't explain it but in this in this case your honor what i'm saying is that the hard evidence cannot be ignored despite what his answers were to those seemingly simple questions deal with the fact and in the in the document that he confessed was fraudulent that's the one where he said he worked for the other companies yes and yet the i get two documents that said he was one was a graduation certificate of a chemistry another was kind of a teacher permit or something far as i know those were not per se contradicted that correct oh you start you talk about letter to the letter to white they were not so if the want is fall what do we to the united states and essentially flee persecution and so that is why i think that the fact that he's fleeing persecution and that does not impart any whack of credibility to him to him and therefore the two documents  that we're talking about terms of the chemistry teacher those should be given for weight and they were emitted into the record without objection and again the judge did not find any lack of credibility or any in dish or of unreliability for those two particular documents you want to say many of your this case he didn't do so the board of immigration appeals properly relied on his admission and is and is undisputed he admitted that he is submitted into the record an altered household register and in fact he submitted to household registers into the to i mean i guess what i'm struggling with is that the i'm just trying to use common sense why would he falsify his occupation it doesn't help his claim not that i'm aware of your honor but  it doesn't matter for purposes of the atom totality of circumstance circumstances test for credibility under the real i d act it doesn't matter if it's done to enhance his claim the fact is that it is a falsehood and it was an altered fraudulent document well ok but i'm just saying if you find him not credible here in the v o a they have to i guess i'm just trying to put together the theory it's that because he does as your opponent pointed out he does submit the documents that  very sort of credibly state his occupation something else so you have to assume that i don't know he would have put forward these two conflicting documents there's no advantage to him if he's going to just make up this whole thing there's no advantage to claiming that he's one thing on one so what i don't get for just doesn't make any sense and that's and that's and that all goes to his credibility i understand that there are those two documents regarding the fact his graduation with a degree in education and chemistry and the teacher certification for teaching chemistry to high school level however he also said to the immigration judge that the middleman that he hired made all the documents for him and that was the the explanation that he proffered to the immigration judge to justify the submission of the altered household registers he said i didn't know i didn't look it was just submitted by the middleman for me so that i could leave the so i could leave china and he says that that's that he suggested that the middle man made all the documents for him to leave china ok so but that doesn't make any sense because according to the record he entered the united states in april of two thousand and eleven which means that he had to have applied for his visa the middleman had to submit all the documents for his visa before april of two thousand and eleven but the household registers that he submitted into the record were were both basically the base document were not dated until november of two thousand and eleven and the alterations to the nd one that he did he submitted to the court were made in two thousand and thirteen so it doesn't make any sense for him to say that i use those the middleman i submitted those because the middleman gave them to me to expedite my my exit from china when they were all produced after he was already given his visa and after he had already come into the united states so that makes no sense as to the the  credibility of the two documents the image and as we argued in the brief the board in the immigration judge understandably looked with skepticism given the two certified certifications regarding his chemistry education when he couldn't even answer the basic questions of what is the difference between different types of chemistry never not in any of the transcripts of the word carbon come out of his mouth when they were asking him the difference between organic chemistry versus an organic chemistry and regardless of how basic chemistry education might be as a high school teacher that's a very basic and fundamental precept that you should have been able to just come out and say if he's been teaching high school for you know however many four or five years it was before he came to the united states but doesn't the agency have to says doesn't he have to make some finding as to the authenticity of those documents in order to say that sorry you were lying about your your being a chemistry teacher although i think that goes to a to the immigration judge admitted with that objection from the government but the way that he accords to that evidence i think is something that the court should that should defer to the immigration judge just weighing of the evidence given the totality of the  circumstances the immigration judge and the board appropriately gave less weight to the fact that she was due those unchallenged documents but that he was educated in chemistry given that he couldn't answer the basic question is it so then you're not you're but the agencies theory is that he really was this quality control person he knew nothing about chemistry and yet when it came time to submit because he's the one who submitted the documents strain why would he and that's and i want to make clear it's not the government's theory that he was the quality control an employee i just the record isn't clear and because the record isn't that here's something other than a chemistry teacher you're the agency's theory is that he did in fact  know the contents of what was in the house or tree he was making it up when he claimed it was a middleman don't know but he is charged with knowledge of the of the documents that he said metz wrote in support of his application yeah but i'm just saying ok so he and why would anyone do that if they're making the story of the pics no sense so it makes it makes no sense but nothing and in the sense that he was testifying to things that maybe he was told to testify to it's not clear and so if if there's no rhyme or reason the burden is on him to reconcile those the record the inconsistency is in his own evidence to the immigration judge so that the immigration judge as a fact finder is reassured that ok this was an honest mistake that didn't happen here when he was confronted with those with the evidence he said oh that's right but the middleman did that had nothing to do with me but that as i just argued earlier that that argument doesn't make any sense and so it seems like he was just on t things up in order to justify something that he did wasn't aware because he had trusted whoever prepared his asylum application to make sure that everything all the claims were inconsistent so long as he was well versed enough in his persecution claim and i do persecution to lay claim to any kind of rebuttable claim of a presumption of well founded fear of future persecution or to bolster that claim he can't do that well that's troubling to me i get your point about the chemistry well  persecution i didn't really see that the guy or the i j a really dealt with the corroborating evidence about the past persecution and really you know contradicted that  what do we do with that can we can we reverse on that one and affirm on the other point i don't think so your honor i think the court looks to the totality of the circumstances test the agency appropriately applied to assess mr she said it broken down by what you're applying for  relief under say withholding if the evidence is different well i think it may not but in this case what he's saying if i found a central question you're saying can we rely on the fact that he's a chemistry teacher in assessing his claim  contradicted testimony in effect the ghost of past persecution if we don't find that that was contradicted anyway what difference does it make for that purpose whether or not he was lying or had under the the evidence failed in his burden on the other elements of his fight because his credibility permeates his entire claim and what is your best case with already for that credibility is a universal concept that lies and one lies and all basically that your position well i mean in this case his story is his past persecution claim was denied soley on adverse credibility and if you couldn't believe what he was saying about his story in the past then there was no need for that for the immigration judge or the board to credit his evidence in support of that claim of a government position is false and one false with all the right well not the totality of the circumstances i mean that's yours you know i think one of the biggest issues with these types of cases at the lower court level is that we simply just start adding up all the inconsistency or whatever inconsistent that made their baby and we simply just say oh inconsistency ok denied without actually evaluating the inconsistency for truthfulness i mean as your honor judge white for pointed out we have to sit there and say is this person telling the truth that's the key to credibility and again when we were talking about whether he's a chemistry teacher or quality control for a leather products company that doesn't help his claim at all either way and so there certainly is there's simply no reason for him to be telling the truth in this matter and so we're evaluating the inconsistency there is but does what does that say to his overall truthfulness and we're talking about this inconsistency amongst hours of testimony and yet we choose this inconsistency you to invalidate what was otherwise credible testimony   purpose that he said number you didn't need a middleman to provide the false information so i could leave what do we do with that i believe that question was asked by the immigration judge and what he basically said was at the time that you know that i left it was altered and then after that i could not then alter it back as i don't have to go to the police station to do so and so that's why the two thousand and thirteen household register had the same thing that they should he said the reason he gave it was sort of get out of china already had the permission why do you view this submitted to our government there after for that for that reason what i believe that the the house would read this was submitted as part of a package to