United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued October 5, 2011

Decided October 17, 2011

Before

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge

    DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

    ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

No. 11‐1082

QIAO LING LIN,

Petitioner,

v.

ERIC H. HOLDER, JR.,

Attorney General of the United States,

Respondent.

Petition for Review of a Decision of the

Board of Immigration Appeals.

No. A 097 324 231

O R D E R

Qiao Ling Lin, a citizen of China, petitions for review of a decision of the Board of

Immigration Appeals denying her motion to reopen her asylum proceedings as untimely.

Lin contends that the Board abused its discretion by ignoring and discounting evidence she

submitted of changed country conditions that would excuse the otherwise untimely filing of

her motion. Although the Board failed to address some of her evidence and discounted

evidence that arguably deserved more weight, its decision was not an abuse of discretion.

The Board demonstrated that it was aware of all of her evidence, and it reasonably

concluded that this evidence did not show changed country conditions that warrant

reopening. We deny the petition for review.

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 11‐1082 Page 2

Lin entered the United States at Chicago in 2003 using a Japanese passport in

someone else’s name. She was detained and immediately requested asylum. She said that

authorities in her native Fujian Province had persecuted her for practicing Christianity. At a

hearing in late December 2003, the immigration judge gave Lin two weeks to file a

completed asylum application. She apparently did not do so, and the IJ informed her at a

hearing that he considered her request for asylum abandoned and withdrawn.

Lin appealed to the Board. Her attorney asserted without support that he had filed

Lin’s completed application. The Board, however, found no evidence that any application

had been submitted and upheld the IJ’s decision. For reasons not apparent in the record, Lin

was then released from DHS custody. Lin has since given birth to two children.

In 2010, Lin moved to reopen her asylum proceedings on the ground that conditions

in China had materially changed. She argued that persecution of Christians had increased

and that enforcement of China’s family‐planning policy had become more stringent and

coercive, particularly in Fujian. She feared that if returned to China she would be forcibly

sterilized for having two children and would be persecuted for her religious affiliation.

In support of her motion to reopen, Lin submitted more than 1000 pages of

previously unavailable evidence. This evidence includes (1) an expert report from Dr. Flora

Sapio, a lecturer from the Centre of Advanced Studies on Contemporary China at the Julius‐

Maximilians University, criticizing the State Department’s 2007 Profile of Asylum Claims

and Country Conditions for downplaying the coerciveness of China’s family‐planning

policy; (2) the 2008 and 2009 reports of the Congressional‐Executive Commission on China

(CECC),* which describe coercive enforcement of China’s family‐planning policy as

“commonplace” and explain that compulsory abortion and sterilization are part of the

official policy in Fujian and other provinces; (3) Chinese‐government documents saying that

some children who are born abroad to Chinese parents are counted for family‐planning

purposes; (4) correspondence between Lin and her locality’s family‐planning office stating

that she would be a “target to undergo sterilization” if she returned to China; (5) firsthand

accounts accompanied by “sterilization certificates” from women in Changle City who

claim to have been forcibly sterilized in recent years; (6) a 2007 report from the Australian

Refugee Review Tribunal on China’s treatment of Christians; and (7) an article from

Christianity Today describing recent mistreatment of Christians in China. To establish that

conditions in China related to family‐planning were milder at the time of her original

asylum application than they are today, Lin submitted an earlier decision of the Board, In re

* Congress created the bipartisan CECC in 2000 “to monitor human rights and the

development of the rule of law in China.” http://www.cecc.gov/.
No. 11‐1082 Page 3

J‐W‐S, 24 I. & N. Dec. 185, 193 (2007), which described family‐planning enforcement in

Fujian Province in 2003 as “lax” and “uneven.”

The Board denied Lin’s motion to reopen as untimely. According to the Board, she

had not proven a material change in country conditions warranting reopening beyond the

90 days otherwise allowed for the filing of such a motion under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(2)–(3).

In explaining its decision, the Board listed Lin’s evidence and discussed some of it. The

Board discounted the “documents from China” because they had not been authenticated,

and it rejected other, unspecified evidence as “incomplete” or “previously considered and

addressed” in other cases. The Board downplayed statements purportedly from Chinese

victims of forced sterilization because such statements were unsworn. The Board also noted

that some victims had not given birth abroad and expressed skepticism that a parent

returning to China with children born abroad would be forcibly sterilized. It concluded that

“administrative punishments” not amounting to persecution are used to enforce China’s

family‐planning policy and that Lin had not shown that she would be persecuted as a

Christian if she returned there.

An asylum applicant who seeks to reopen his or her case more than 90 days after a

final decision must demonstrate a material change in conditions in the applicant’s home

country. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(2)–(3). This burden cannot be satisfied by evidence of current

country conditions alone; conditions at the time of the original asylum case must be offered

for comparison, and the applicant must demonstrate that the change in country conditions

is material by presenting a prima facie case for asylum. Liang v. Holder, 626 F.3d 983, 988–89

(7th Cir. 2010). In exercising its discretion, the Board must consider the applicant’s evidence,

but it need not provide a detailed discussion of each piece. Iglesias v. Mukasey, 540 F.3d 528,

531 (7th Cir. 2010). Failure to discuss each piece of evidence is especially excusable when, as

here, a massive amount of evidence has been submitted. See Liang, 626 F.3d at 992.

In her petition, Lin first argues that the Board abused its discretion by rejecting Dr.

Sapio’s expert report and relying instead on the State Department’s 2007 Profile of Asylum

Claims and Country Conditions, which says that forcible sterilization and abortion are not a

significant problem in Fujian. Lin had offered Dr. Sapio’s report to dispute the 2007 Profile’s

assessment of conditions in Fujian and to establish that forcible sterilization continues to be

a problem. The Board explained that it was not moved by Dr. Sapio’s report because it was

“not persuaded” that Dr. Sapio is an expert on the reports created by the State Department.

It went on to say that even if Dr. Sapio had correctly identified flaws in the 2007 Profile, this

would not have changed the outcome of Lin’s motion to reopen. Lin understood the Board

to be saying that the 2007 Profile is “unchallengeable as a matter of law.”
No. 11‐1082 Page 4

Lin’s argument does not have merit. The Board did not conclude that the State

Department’s 2007 Profile was “unchallengeable as a matter of law,”and it did not reject Dr.

Sapio’s evidence on that basis. Rather, the Board’s decision shows that it considered

Dr. Sapio’s report but found the 2007 Profile more persuasive. And the Board is correct that

even if it had accepted Dr. Sapio’s assessment of the 2007 Profile, Lin still would not have

made her case, because Dr. Sapio did not assert that relevant conditions have worsened in

Fujian since 2004. The Board did not abuse its discretion by rejecting an expert report that

was ultimately immaterial. See Kucana v. Holder, 603 F.3d 394, 396 (7thCir. 2010).

Lin next objects to the Board’s failure to address the 2008 and 2009 CECC reports,

which she offered as evidence that China currently enforces its family‐planning policy

coercively. These reports characterize coercive enforcement as “commonplace,” and the

2009 CECC report explains that Fujian’s longstanding policy of taking “remedial measures”

to enforce family‐planning rules is a policy of compulsory abortion. Fujian’s “remedial

measures” policy is also discussed in the 2007 State Department Asylum Profile, but it says

merely that the measures are “unspecified,” and it never equates the phrase with

compulsory abortion as the 2009 CECC report does.

The Board’s failure to address the CECC reports is troubling: CECC reports are

official publications that should be afforded weight, and the Board ought to have explained

how it reconciles the CECC reports with its view that China’s family‐planning policy is

enforced through administrative means. But this failure does not merit granting Lin’s

petition. Even if the Board had given the CECC reports serious consideration, the reports

would not have established Lin’s case, because they do not document deterioration in

China’s treatment of violators of its family‐planning policy between 2004 and the filing of

Lin’s motion in 2010. As such, the Board’s failure to discuss them is excusable under the

highly deferential standard of review we apply to denials of motions to reopen.

Lin also argues generally that the Board abused its discretion by rejecting certain

unidentified documents from Chinese‐government websites as unauthenticated. She argues

that such documents from official Chinese websites are self‐authenticating “official

publications” under Federal Rule of Evidence 902(5) and should not have been discounted.

She does not point to specific documents, and she does not discuss how the Board’s

purported error affected the outcome of her case. But the Board did not abuse its discretion

when it concluded that Lin’s documents from Chinese‐government websites were

unauthenticated: Lin not argue that the documents were self‐authenticating in her motion to

reopen, and the three district court cases from outside this circuit she now cites do not

concern the authentication of documents from foreign websites.
No. 11‐1082 Page 5

Lin’s last challenge to the Board’s decision on her claim that she faces forcible

sterilization in China is that the Board abused its discretion by failing to credit evidence that

her American‐born children would be counted for family‐planning purposes. She believes

that the Board has concluded that children born to Chinese parents in some countries will

be counted for family‐planning purposes while children born in the United States will not.

But it is not clear that the Board made such a distinction. To the contrary, the Board

conceded that “China regards a child of Chinese nationals who have not permanently

settled in another country as a Chinese national” without suggesting any distinction

between the United States and other countries. This was not an abuse of discretion.

Before moving on to Lin’s religious‐persecution arguments, we make two additional

observations about her family‐planning‐related evidence and how the Board analyzed it.

First, Lin’s most serious evidentiary deficiency was her failure to establish the conditions in

Fujian in 2004. (Offering the Board’s decision in In re J‐W‐S to establish that enforcement

was once “lax” and “uneven” did not satisfy her burden. A case is not evidence.) This

failure rendered most of her other evidence, including the CECC reports, immaterial.

Second, although the Board’s ultimate conclusion—that Lin had not shown changed

country conditions—was reasonable, it would have done better to rest its decision on Lin’s

failure to offer evidence of 2004 conditions rather than on the questionable assertion that

China enforces its family‐planning policy through administrative means.   

As to her religious‐persecution claim, Lin contends that the Board abused its

discretion when it determined that she had not demonstrated a material change in China’s

treatment of Christians since January 2004. She argues that she met her burden by

submitting a 2007 report from the Australian Refugee Review Tribunal that describes

Fujian’s tolerance of Christians in 2000 followed by hostilities toward them beginning in

2002 and a Christianity Today article from 2009 describing hostilities toward Christians

surrounding the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. One problem with Lin’s argument is that

she dates the change in conditions to 2002, which undercuts her claim that there has been a

material change since 2004. She also failed to provide any evidence to support her assertion

that she was persecuted in China for her religious affiliation, and she does not explain why

she will be a target for persecution if returned to China. The Board’s decision shows that it

considered the evidence that some Christians in Fujian are ill treated and reasonably

concluded that Lin had not established that she faces persecution in China based on her

practice of Christianity. This was not an abuse of discretion.   

The petition is DENIED.