PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 13-1653

YANI MULYANI; DIDIN WAHIDIN,

Petitioners,

v.

ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., Attorney General,

Respondent.

On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration 

Appeals.

Argued: September 17, 2014 Decided: November 14, 2014 

Before NIEMEYER, DUNCAN, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

Petition for review denied by published opinion. Judge Thacker 

wrote the opinion, in which Judge Niemeyer and Judge Duncan 

joined.

ARGUED: H. Glenn Fogle, Jr., THE FOGLE LAW FIRM, LLC, Atlanta, 

Georgia, for Petitioners. Gregory Michael Kelch, UNITED STATES 

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON 

BRIEF: Stuart F. Delery, Assistant Attorney General, Linda S. 

Wernery, Assistant Director, Office of Immigration Litigation, 

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for 

Respondent.
2

THACKER, Circuit Judge:

Yani Mulyani (“Mulyani”) is a native of Indonesia. 

She petitions this court for review of a Board of Immigration 

Appeals (“BIA”) decision denying her application for asylum, 

withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against 

Torture (“CAT”).1 Her petition for review raises three 

arguments. First, Mulyani asserts that the statutory time bar, 

8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(B), does not preclude her application for 

asylum. Second, she disputes the BIA’s determination that her 

claims for asylum and withholding of removal cannot proceed 

because she failed to show that the Indonesian government was 

unwilling or unable to protect her. Finally, Mulyani challenges 

the BIA’s conclusion that CAT relief is unavailable because she 

has not shown that, upon removal, she would likely endure 

torture by or with the approval or acquiescence of the 

Indonesian government.

We do not reach Mulyani’s first argument, as we lack 

jurisdiction to decide whether she qualifies for an exception to 

the statutory time bar. We reject her remaining arguments 

 1 Mulyani’s husband, Didin Wahidin, is also a petitioner in 

this case. However, because he seeks relief solely as a 

derivative beneficiary on his wife’s application for asylum and 

withholding of removal, his claims rise and fall with hers. 

Accordingly, our opinion in this case focuses primarily on 

Mulyani.
3

because substantial evidence supports the BIA’s determinations. 

Therefore, Mulyani’s petition is denied.

I.

Mulyani grew up a Christian in Indonesia, a majorityMuslim country. Her parents were converts to the Christian

faith and had her baptized when she was four years old. For 

years, the family attended church every Sunday. To this day, 

Mulyani’s parents and siblings continue to live in Indonesia and 

remain practicing Christians.

Mulyani’s husband and co-petitioner, Didin Wahidin, is 

a Muslim. He prays at home but does not attend a mosque. Since 

arriving in the United States, Mulyani has practiced her faith 

in a similar fashion, worshipping exclusively in the home.

Mulyani and Wahidin came to the United States on 

vacation in September 2000. Instead of returning to Indonesia 

when their vacation ended, they chose to remain in the United 

States indefinitely. Mulyani asserts that she would suffer 

religious persecution if forced to return to Indonesia, having 

endured several instances of religiously motivated violence 

there during her youth. Her application for relief from removal

recounts four such incidents.

The first of those incidents occurred in 1991, when 

Mulyani was 16 years old. A group of about ten students 

attacked her at a bus stop. The students hit and kicked her, 
4

and one struck her with a metal rod. Mulyani suffered a broken 

left arm. Though she told her parents and her pastor about the 

beating, she did not report the incident to police, purportedly 

because she believed the police would not care about her because 

she was a Christian.

A few years later, when Mulyani was in college, she 

and a female companion were accosted on their way home from a 

prayer meeting at a friend’s residence. Mulyani was carrying a 

bible at the time. The assailants, three men she did not know, 

chased the two young women and called them names like “nasty 

Christian” and “slutty Christian.” J.A. 140.2

 The men grabbed 

Mulyani and held her hands behind her back. One man put his 

penis on her and tried to rape her. The assailants fled when 

someone across the street yelled “oy, oy.” Id. at 142. As 

before, Mulyani did not report the incident to the police.

Later, in 1998, Mulyani and two other people were 

walking through downtown Majalengka in search of a lunch spot 

when they encountered what she described as a large crowd of 

“radical” Muslims staging an anti-Christian protest. J.A. 152. 

One protestor pointed at Mulyani and said, “Christian, 

Christian, burn the Christian.” Id. at 153. Roughly 20 or 30 

 2 Citations to the “J.A.” refer to the Joint Appendix filed 

by the parties in this appeal.
5

protestors attacked Mulyani. They hit and kicked her and 

stuffed a handkerchief in her mouth. One man snatched a hot 

skewer from a street vendor and pressed it to her stomach. A 

police siren prompted the assailants to release her and flee the 

scene. Once again, Mulyani did not report the incident to the 

police.

The final incident occurred shortly after the protest. 

According to Mulyani, a group of between four and eight 

“radical” Muslims gathered outside her parents’ house at night. 

J.A. 156, 294. They banged on the door and windows and 

threatened to burn the house down if the occupants did not come 

out. Someone threw a Molotov cocktail through one of the 

windows, but the bomb did not explode. Mulyani says she 

believes the group targeted the house because her family is

Christian.

Mulyani remained in Indonesia for approximately two 

years after the last of these incidents. In January 2000, she

and Wahidin married. The couple traveled to the United States

on September 3, 2000, to vacation in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. 

Mulyani had a tourist visa and was authorized to remain in the 

United States until March 2, 2001. After about two weeks of 

sightseeing, the couple headed east to visit a friend in 

Wisconsin. While there, Mulyani says, “I realized and I 

observed that in [the] United States, they . . . have freedom of 
6

religion. They don’t care if you’re Christian or a Muslim.” 

J.A. 162. For this reason, she says, she and her husband 

decided to stay in America.

In 2001, the couple responded to a magazine 

advertisement for an agency called the Chinese Indonesian 

American Society (“CIAS”), which was offering to help people 

obtain a green card or work permit. Hoping to acquire work 

permits, they agreed to send CIAS money and copies of certain 

personal records. “[T]hey sent us back blank pages telling us 

where to sign these papers,” Mulyani later recalled. “We did 

and sent them back, and then we received our working permits.” 

J.A. 295. Although she says she did not know what she was 

signing, one of the documents was, in fact, an application for 

asylum and withholding of removal. CIAS filed the application 

on Mulyani’s behalf in June 2002.3

Mulyani says she did not then know what asylum was. 

She says she did not learn about this form of protection -- nor 

that CIAS had already sought it for her -- until late 2004 or 

early 2005, when she hired an attorney to renew her work permit. 

It was during the course of these discussions with the attorney, 

 3 A 2004 federal investigation implicated CIAS and its 

founder, Hans Gouw, in an asylum fraud scheme. See Loren Ryter, 

Indonesians in Asylum, in Identifying with Freedom: Indonesia 

After Suharto 125, 131 (Tony Day ed. 2007).
7

she says, that she realized she might qualify for asylum and 

decided she wanted to pursue it. She failed to take action, 

though, and in September 2008 the Department of Homeland 

Security initiated removal proceedings against Mulyani and 

Wahidin.

Both Mulyani and her husband conceded removability 

under section 237(a)(1)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality 

Act (“INA”), which provides that any alien unlawfully present in 

the United States is deportable. See 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(B). 

Mulyani sought relief in the form of asylum, withholding of 

removal, and withholding pursuant to the CAT. In support of her 

claims, she submitted a number of country reports and online 

articles indicating that the Indonesian government was 

indifferent, if not hostile, to the rights of Christians. The 

documents included a 2008 Department of State report observing 

that the Indonesian government sometimes “tolerated 

discrimination against and the abuse of religious groups by 

private actors and often failed to punish perpetrators.” J.A. 

506. This same report, however, also says that the Indonesian 

government operates programs to replace damaged churches and 

ease religious tension, and that the government has successfully 

tried and convicted numerous terrorists believed to have 

committed acts of interreligious violence.
8

Following a hearing, an immigration judge (“IJ”) 

denied all requested relief. The IJ first determined that 

Mulyani’s application for asylum was untimely under 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1158(a)(2)(B) and therefore barred. With regard to the 

application for withholding of removal, the IJ found that the 

harm Mulyani experienced during her youth in Indonesia rose to 

the level of persecution. The IJ also acknowledged that the 

evidence permits a “reasonable inference” that this harm was on 

account of her Christian faith. J.A. 61. Nevertheless, the IJ 

denied the request for withholding of removal because Mulyani 

had not established that the Indonesian government was unable or 

unwilling to control her persecutors. The IJ also denied relief 

under the CAT, finding that Mulyani had failed to demonstrate 

that, if returned to Indonesia, she would likely “be tortured 

by, or at the instigation of, or with the consent or 

acquiescence of, a public official.” Id. at 65.

On appeal, the BIA took no position as to whether 

Mulyani’s application for asylum was time-barred, but it 

concluded that her claims for asylum and withholding of removal 

fail regardless because she had not established that the 

Indonesian government was unwilling or unable to protect her. 

The agency also accepted the IJ’s determination that Mulyani did 

not merit CAT relief because she “has not shown that it is more 

likely than not that she would be tortured by or with the 
9

approval or acquiescence of the government of Indonesia.” J.A. 

4. Accordingly, the BIA dismissed the appeal.

II.

A.

Mulyani first challenges the IJ’s determination that 

her asylum application was untimely and therefore statutorily 

barred.

To apply for asylum, an alien must demonstrate “by 

clear and convincing evidence that the application has been 

filed within 1 year after the date of the alien’s arrival in the 

United States.” 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(B). Mulyani’s 2002 

application came too late to satisfy this requirement. 

Accordingly, to obtain relief, she must prove “[t]o the 

satisfaction of the asylum officer, the immigration judge, or 

the Board that . . . she qualifies for an exception to the 1-

year deadline.” 8 C.F.R. § 1208.4(a)(2)(i).

Mulyani asserts that she qualifies for the 

“extraordinary circumstances” exception to the one-year time 

limit. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(D). This provision permits an 

alien to bring an untimely application if she “demonstrates to 

the satisfaction of the Attorney General either the existence of 

changed circumstances which materially affect the applicant’s 

eligibility for asylum or extraordinary circumstances relating 

to the delay in filing.” Id. Mulyani’s argument, which the IJ 
10

rejected, is that her failure to file within the one-year time 

limit should be excused because CIAS neglected to tell her about 

asylum before the filing deadline expired. We conclude that we 

lack jurisdiction to consider this claim, both because the BIA 

took no position on whether the statutory time limit bars her 

application and because Congress has expressly restricted our 

power to review agency decisions involving the time bar.

1.

By law, our power to review an order of removal is 

limited to the “final” order. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1); Martinez 

v. Holder, 740 F.3d 902, 908 n.1 (4th Cir. 2014). An order does 

not become final until “‘all administrative remedies’” have been 

exhausted. Gandziami-Mickhou v. Gonzales, 445 F.3d 351, 359 n.2 

(4th Cir. 2006) (quoting § 1252(d)(1)). Thus, as a general 

matter, final orders in removal proceedings come not from the 

IJ, but “from the BIA, the highest administrative tribunal.” 

Martinez, 740 F.3d at 908 n.1 (internal quotation marks 

omitted).

This rule is not without exceptions. For instance, 

when the BIA issues an order, without opinion, affirming an IJ’s 

decision and endorsing that decision as “the final agency 

determination,” 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(4)(ii), we will “treat the 

reasoning of the IJ Order as that of the BIA.” Haoua v. 

Gonzales, 472 F.3d 227, 231 (4th Cir. 2007).
11

In other cases, such as the instant one, the BIA may 

issue a brief order affirming, modifying, or reversing an 

immigration judge’s decision. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(5). 

Under these circumstances, where the BIA has “essentially 

adopted the IJ’s opinion while adding some of its own 

reasoning,” the court may review both decisions. Thu v. Holder, 

596 F.3d 994, 998 (8th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks 

omitted); see Martinez, 740 F.3d at 908. We have noted, though, 

that review of an IJ decision is permissible only to the extent 

that the BIA adopted it. See Martinez, 740 F.3d at 908 n.1 

(“[W]here the BIA issues an opinion without adopting the IJ’s 

opinion in whole or in part, this Court can only review the 

BIA’s opinion.”).

Here, the BIA expressly stated that it was “not 

finding that [Mulyani] has successfully established an exception 

to the 1 year filing deadline.” J.A. 3. Instead, its decision 

“assume[d] arguendo” that her application was timely, and it

concluded that her claims failed on the merits, regardless. Id. 

In doing so, the BIA excluded the timeliness issue from the 

final order of removal, leaving this court without power to 

consider the matter in our review.
12

2.

That is not to say that we would have had the power to 

review the timeliness issue if the BIA had ruled on it. In 

fact, we would not. Congress restricted our authority in 8 

U.S.C. § 1158(a)(3). This provision states, “No court shall 

have jurisdiction to review any determination of the Attorney 

General under [8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)],” a subsection that 

includes both the time limit and the exception for extraordinary 

circumstances. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(3). Plainly, judicial review 

of the IJ’s timeliness holding is unavailable under this 

provision. See Gomis v. Holder, 571 F.3d 353, 358-59 (4th Cir. 

2009) (holding that, “under the express language of 

§ 1158(a)(3),” we lacked jurisdiction to review an IJ’s 

determination that an asylum applicant “had not demonstrated 

changed or extraordinary circumstances to excuse her untimely 

filing”).

Our power to review an IJ’s determination would 

survive the limitation in § 1158(a)(3) only if the appeal 

presented a constitutional claim or question of law. See 8 

U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D) (providing that statutory limitations on 

judicial review in certain immigration cases “shall [not] be 

construed as precluding review of constitutional claims or 

questions of law raised upon a petition for review”); Vasile v. 
13

Gonzales, 417 F.3d 766, 768 (7th Cir. 2005). Mulyani’s appeal, 

however, presents no such claim or question.

BIA determinations ordinarily reviewable under the 

substantial evidence standard are “necessarily factual in 

nature, and therefore beyond our jurisdiction to review.” 

Saintha v. Mukasey, 516 F.3d 243, 249 (4th Cir. 2008); see

Higuit v. Gonzales, 433 F.3d 417, 420 (4th Cir. 2006) (“We are 

not free to convert every immigration case into a question of 

law, and thereby undermine Congress’s decision to grant limited 

jurisdiction over matters committed in the first instance to the 

sound discretion of the Executive.”). In Gomis v. Holder, we 

joined the majority of federal circuit courts in concluding that 

8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D) does not confer appellate jurisdiction 

to consider an applicant’s claims of changed or extraordinary 

circumstances. 571 F.3d at 358. That being so, we proceed no 

further on this question and turn instead to Mulyani’s other

arguments.

B.

Mulyani next challenges the BIA’s conclusion that she 

failed to meet her burden of proof for asylum and withholding of 

removal. She contends that the evidence proves the Indonesian 

government would be unwilling or unable to protect her from 

religious persecution, and that the BIA’s determination to the 

contrary was in error. We disagree.
14

A BIA decision granting or denying asylum under 8 

U.S.C. § 1158(a) “shall be conclusive unless manifestly contrary 

to the law and an abuse of discretion.” 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1252(b)(4)(D). We may not disturb the BIA’s determinations on 

asylum eligibility so long as those determinations “are 

supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on 

the record considered as a whole.” Tassi v. Holder, 660 F.3d 

710, 719 (4th Cir. 2011). While we review the BIA’s legal 

conclusions de novo, our standard of review of the agency’s 

factual findings is “narrow and deferential.” Djadjou v. 

Holder, 662 F.3d 265, 273 (4th Cir. 2011). We accept the 

agency’s factual findings unless “any reasonable adjudicator 

would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.” 

§ 1252(b)(4)(B).

The scope of our review of a final order denying 

withholding of removal is likewise narrow. See Hui Pan v. 

Holder, 737 F.3d 921, 926 (4th Cir. 2013). Where, as here, the 

BIA concludes that the applicant has not met her burden of 

proof, “we will affirm the BIA’s determination if it is 

supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a 

whole.” Niang v. Gonzales, 492 F.3d 505, 510 (4th Cir. 2007). 

Even if the record “plausibly could support two results: the one 

the IJ chose and the one [the petitioner] advances, reversal is 

only appropriate where the court find[s] that the evidence not 
15

only supports [the opposite] conclusion, but compels it.” Id.

at 511 (alterations and emphasis in original) (internal 

quotation marks omitted).

The BIA requires an applicant alleging past 

persecution to show that the harm was inflicted by the

government or by others whom the government is unable or 

unwilling to control. See In re Acosta, 19 I. & N. Dec. 211, 

222 (BIA 1985), overruled in part on other grounds by In re 

Mogharrabi, 19 I. & N. Dec. 439 (BIA 1987); see also Menjivar v. 

Gonzales, 416 F.3d 918, 921 (8th Cir. 2005). This requirement

is not explicit in the INA. Rather, it derives from the board’s

interpretations of two words with profound significance in 

asylum law -- namely, “refugee” and “persecution.”

To qualify for asylum, an applicant must prove that 

she meets the definition of a “refugee” under 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1101(a)(42). The applicant makes this showing by 

demonstrating that “she has suffered from past persecution or 

that she has a well-founded fear of future persecution” on 

account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a 

particular social group, or political opinion. Mirisawo v. 

Holder, 599 F.3d 391, 396 (4th Cir. 2010). An applicant who 

establishes past persecution on the basis of a protected factor 

benefits from a rebuttable presumption that she has a well-
16

founded fear of future persecution. See 8 C.F.R. 

§ 208.13(b)(1); Djadjou, 662 F.3d at 272.

Withholding of removal is also based on persecution 

but “‘implicates a more demanding standard of proof.’” Lizama 

v. Holder, 629 F.3d 440, 446 n.3 (4th Cir. 2011) (quoting 

Mirisawo, 599 F.3d at 396). Necessarily, “an applicant who 

fails to meet the lower standard for showing eligibility for 

asylum will be unable to satisfy the higher standard for showing 

withholding of removal.” Mirisawo, 599 F.3d at 396.

Persecution, for purposes of asylum and withholding of 

removal, “‘involves the infliction or threat of death, torture, 

or injury to one’s person or freedom, on account of one of the 

enumerated grounds in the refugee definition.’” Li v. Gonzales, 

405 F.3d 171, 177 (4th Cir. 2005) (quoting Kondakova v. 

Ashcroft, 383 F.3d 792, 797 (8th Cir. 2004)). The term 

encompasses “‘actions less severe than threats to life or 

freedom.’” Id. (quoting Dandan v. Ashcroft, 339 F.3d 567, 573 

(7th Cir. 2003)). “[W]hen one who seeks asylum demonstrates 

that he has been severely physically abused or tortured, courts 

have not hesitated to characterize such treatment as 

persecution.” Id.

Prior to the adoption of the Refugee Act of 1980, Pub. 

L. No. 96-212, 94 Stat. 102, the BIA construed the term 

“persecution” to mean “either a threat to the life or freedom 
17

of, or the infliction of suffering or harm upon, those who 

differ in a way regarded as offensive.” Acosta, 19 I. & N. Dec. 

at 222. Employing this construction, the board declared that 

the “harm or suffering had to be inflicted either by the 

government of a country or by persons or an organization that 

the government was unable or unwilling to control.” Id. Many 

of our sister courts agree that an applicant alleging past 

persecution must establish either that the government was 

responsible for the persecution or that it was unable or 

unwilling to control the persecutors.4

 See, e.g., Gathungu v. 

Holder, 725 F.3d 900, 906 (8th Cir. 2013); Henriquez-Rivas v. 

Holder, 707 F.3d 1081, 1083 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc); Jorgji v. 

 4 In Crespin-Valladares v. Holder, we recognized that 

persecution under the INA “encompasses harm inflicted 

by . . . an entity that the government cannot or will not 

control.” 632 F.3d 117, 128 (4th Cir. 2011); see Soliman v. 

Holder, 373 F. App’x 384, 385 (4th Cir. 2010) (per curiam) 

(defining persecution as “‘the infliction of harm or suffering 

by the government, or persons the government is unwilling or 

unable to control, to overcome a characteristic of the victim.’” 

(quoting Khalili v. Holder, 557 F.3d 429, 436 (6th Cir. 2009))). 

Consistent with this understanding, we have upheld BIA decisions 

denying relief where the applicant failed to show that the 

government was unwilling or unable to protect against 

persecution. See, e.g., Ramos-Gonzalez v. Holder, 453 F. App’x 

417, 419 (4th Cir. 2011) (per curiam) (denying a petition for 

review of an order denying an application for withholding of 

removal); Sydykov v. Gonzales, 127 F. App’x 100, 100-01 (4th 

Cir. 2005) (per curiam) (denying a petition for review of an 

order denying asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT relief).
18

Mukasey, 514 F.3d 53, 57 (1st Cir. 2008); Sukwanputra v. 

Gonzales, 434 F.3d 627, 637 (3d Cir. 2006).

Mulyani does not dispute the need to establish 

governmental unwillingness or inability to control private 

actors. She contends, rather, that she made the necessary 

showing -- i.e., that her testimony recounting the persecution 

she suffered in Indonesia, combined with the country reports and 

articles accompanying her application, sufficiently demonstrate 

that the government was unwilling or unable to protect her.

The record shows that Mulyani never notified the 

police or any other governmental authorities about the 

persecution she claims to have suffered. Mulyani’s own

testimony suggests, moreover, that her attackers did not 

consider themselves free to assault her with impunity. In one 

instance, the attackers fled when a man across the street yelled 

“oy, oy.” J.A. 142-43. In another, the anti-Christian 

protesters ceased the assault and scattered when they heard 

police sirens. It would seem, then, that the very people 

persecuting Mulyani believed the government was indeed willing 

and able to crack down on interreligious violence.

Moreover, the BIA decision points to a 2008 Department 

of State report observing that the Indonesian government 

maintains programs to replace damaged churches and ease 

religious tension, and that the government has successfully 
19

prosecuted perpetrators of religiously motivated violence. 

This, too, is probative evidence of the government’s willingness 

and ability to fight religious persecution. See, e.g., Osuji v. 

Holder, 657 F.3d 719, 721-22 (8th Cir. 2011) (holding that an 

asylum applicant had failed to prove past persecution in light 

of a Department of State report on Nigeria suggesting that 

ethnic violence, while “all too common,” was not condoned by the 

government).

Mulyani directs our attention to another portion of 

the Department of State report, zeroing in on its finding that 

“[i]n some cases the [Indonesian government] tolerated 

discrimination against and the abuse of religious groups by 

private actors and often failed to punish perpetrators.” J.A. 

506. She also cites a posting on a website for persecuted 

Christians, www.persecution.com.au, reporting that the 

“implementation of shari’a [in parts of Indonesia] severely 

disadvantages Christians and other non-Muslims, rendering them 

second-class citizens and inducing them to conform to Muslim 

expectations in dress, social behaviour, criminal punishment, 

and so on.” Id. at 548.

These statements, without more, do not justify a 

reversal of the BIA inasmuch as we “are not considering the 

evidence in the first instance, but rather are reviewing the BIA 

decision under a highly deferential standard.” Evelyne v. 
20

Holder, 419 F. App’x 396, 400 (4th Cir. 2011). We must uphold 

the BIA’s decision so long as it is “supported by reasonable, 

substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as 

a whole.” Tassi, 660 F.3d at 719. Here, we hold that 

substantial evidence supports the BIA’s determination that 

Mulyani does not qualify as a “refugee,” and that the accounts 

found in country reports and articles accompanying her 

application are insufficient to compel a contrary conclusion.

C.

Mulyani’s final argument is that the BIA improperly 

denied her claim for relief under the CAT. As before, our 

standard of review is deferential to the BIA. We review a

denial of relief under the CAT for substantial evidence. See

Lizama, 629 F.3d at 449. “Under this standard, ‘administrative 

findings of fact are conclusive unless any reasonable 

adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.’” 

Suarez-Valenzuela v. Holder, 714 F.3d 241, 245 (4th Cir. 2013) 

(quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B)).

An applicant for withholding of removal under the CAT 

must “establish that it is more likely than not that he or she 

would be tortured if removed to the proposed country of 

removal.” 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c)(2). The burden of proof rests 

with the applicant. Id. “For purposes of the CAT, torture 

includes only conduct ‘by or at the instigation of or with the 
21

consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person 

acting in an official capacity.’” Lizama, 629 F.3d at 449 

(quoting 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(1)). “A public official 

acquiesces to torture if, ‘prior to the activity constituting 

torture, [the official] ha[s] awareness of such activity and 

thereafter breach[es] his or her legal responsibility to 

intervene to prevent such activity.’” Id. (alterations in 

original) (quoting 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(7)). The official or 

officials need not have actual knowledge of the torture; it is 

enough if they simply “turn a blind eye” to it. SuarezValenzuela, 714 F.3d at 245-47.

The IJ in this case found that Mulyani had failed to 

proffer any evidence that the Indonesian government knows her 

identity or would harm her because of her religion, and the BIA 

agreed with the IJ’s conclusion. Mulyani, again, points to 

various country reports and news stories about conditions in 

Indonesia as proof of government consent or acquiescence. These 

reports have probative value. See Suarez-Valenzuela, 714 F.3d

at 247. Indeed, we have said that it makes sense for the BIA to 

rely on State Department reports such as these because an 

inquiry into country conditions “is directly within the 

expertise of the Department of State.” Quitanilla v. Holder, 

758 F.3d 570, 574 n.6 (4th Cir. 2014) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). We have cautioned, though, that the BIA may not treat 
22

such reports “‘as Holy Writ’ immune to contradiction.” Ai Hua 

Chen v. Holder, 742 F.3d 171, 179 (4th Cir. 2014) (quoting 

Galina v. INS, 213 F.3d 955, 959 (7th Cir. 2000)); see Gonahasa

v. U.S. INS, 181 F.3d 538, 542 (4th Cir. 1999) (recognizing that 

State Department reports “may be flawed”). In any event, our 

task at this juncture “is not to reweigh the evidence and 

determine which of the competing views is more compelling. It 

is instead to ensure that substantial evidence supports the 

BIA’s judgment.” Gonahasa, 181 F.3d at 542. None of the 

evidence that Mulyani presents in this appeal is sufficient to 

overcome our standard of review. See Mendez-Barrera v. Holder, 

602 F.3d 21, 28 (1st Cir. 2010) (“The country conditions 

reports, standing alone, do not carry the day.”).

III.

Pursuant to the foregoing, we deny Mulyani’s petition 

for review and affirm the BIA’s order.

PETITION FOR REVIEW DENIED