United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted February 21, 2013*

Decided March 12, 2013

Before

WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge

RICHARD A. POSNER, Circuit Judge

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge

No. 12‐2843

CHANG S. LU,

Petitioner,

v.

ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., Attorney

General of the United States,

Respondent.

Petition for Review of an Order of the

Board ofImmigration Appeals.

No. A077‐297‐836

O R D E R

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

*

  This successive appeal has been submitted to the original panel under Operating

Procedure 6(b).    After examining the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral

argument is unnecessary.  See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a); Cir. R. 34(f).
No. 12‐2843 Page 2

Chang Sheng Lu, a citizen of China, seeks review of an order of the Board of Immigration

Appeals denying his motion to reopen his asylum proceedings.  We conclude that the Board

did not abuse its discretion and deny the petition for review.  

Lu fled China and attempted to enter the United States at the airport in Los Angeles,

California, in 2000.    Removal proceedings were initiated against Lu, who conceded

removability but applied for asylum, withholding ofremoval, and relief underthe Convention

Against Torture.  Lu claimed that he feared persecution under China’s family planning laws

because he had tried to help his girlfriend in China, with whom he had conceived an

illegitimate child, escape detection by family planning officials.    After a hearing, an

immigration judge determined that Lu had not met his burden of establishing past persecution

or a well‐founded fear of future persecution, denied his requests for relief, and ordered him

removed.  The Board affirmed on April 5, 2005, and we denied Lu’s subsequent petition for

review.  See Lu v. Gonzales, No. 05‐2110, 199 Fed. Appx. 552 (7th Cir. 2006) (unpublished).

On August 30, 2010, more than five years after the Board’s final order of removal, Lu filed

a motion to reopen his asylum proceedings.  Lu asserted that he would face persecution in

China based on his Christian faith, to which he had converted in 2010, and that he would be

harmed for violating China’s family planning laws because he had become the parent of two

U.S.‐citizen children.  The Board determined that Lu failed to establish a material change in

country conditions and denied the motion as untimely on May 3, 2011.  

On November 7, 2011, Lu filed another motion to reopen, asserting that new evidence

demonstrated changed country conditions in China related to his claims of fear of religious

persecution and the enforcement of China’s family planning laws.  The Board denied Lu’s

second motion to reopen as untimely and numerically barred on July 19, 2012, concluding once

again that Lu had not established that circumstances in China had materially changed since the

time of his final hearing so as to excuse the time and numerical limitations on his motion to

reopen.  

It is the Board’s July 19, 2010 order denying Lu’s motion to reopen that is the subject of

Lu’s current petition for review.  In general, an alien may file only one motion to reopen and

that motion must be filed within ninety days of entry of the Board’s final administrative

decision.  8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(A); 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(2).  These limits do not apply, however,

to a motion to reopen “based on changed country conditions . . . if the evidence [of the changed

conditions] is material and was not available and could not have been discovered or presented

at the previous hearing.”  Id. at 240 (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(ii)).   We review the Board’s

decision not to reopen an asylum claim underthe deferential abuse of discretion standard.  See

Pelinkovic v. Ashcroft, 366 F.3d 532, 536 (7th Cir. 2004) (citations omitted).  We will uphold the
No. 12‐2843 Page 3

Board’s decision to deny Lu’s motion to reopen “unless it was made without a rational

explanation, inexplicably departed from established policies, or rested on an impermissible

basis such as invidious discrimination against a particular group orrace.”  Zheng v. Holder, 701

F.3d 237, 241 (7th Cir. 2012) (quoting Mansour v. I.N.S., 230 F.3d 902, 907 (7th Cir. 2000)).   

Lu argues thatthe Board abused its discretion in determining that his motion to reopendid

not fall within the “changed country conditions” exception of 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(2).  We

disagree.  First, the Board correctly noted that both of Lu’s purported claims for asylum—his

adoption of the Christian faith and the birth of his two children—arose from changes in his

personal circumstances since his last hearing.  Such changes in personal conditions do not

triggerthe statutory exception for otherwise barred motions to reopen.  See Liang v. Holder, 626

F.3d 983, 988 (7th Cir. 2010) (“While a change in country conditions can warrant reopening

removalproceedings afterthe 90‐day time limithas expired, a change in the applicant’s personal

conditions will not.”).  

Second, the Board did not abuse its discretion in determining that the evidence Lu

submitted failed to demonstrate a material change in conditions in China since 2003.  Although

Lu argues that the Board selectively ignored evidence in determining that Lu failed to submit

comparable evidence for conditions as they stood in 2003, the time of his last hearing, we find

that the Board’s thorough discussion of the evidence here was sufficient for our review.  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. 2008).

Instead, “[i]tismerely requiredto considerthe issues raised, and announce itsdecision in terms

sufficient to enable a reviewing court to perceive that it has heard and thought and not merely

reacted.”   Liang, 626 F.3d at 992 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).   We are

satisfied that the Board has done so here.

Finally, Lu has not persuaded us that the Board erred in rejecting or giving limited weight

to documents Lu submitted that the Board concluded were not authentic or genuine evidence

of conditions in China.  Notably, the Board concluded that even if it considered the documents

that were not properly authenticated, Lu still failed to demonstrate the existence of material,

changed conditions in China regarding the persecution of Christians or the enforcement of its

family planning laws since 2003.    We do not find that this conclusion was an abuse of

discretion.  Accordingly, Lu’s petition for review is DENIED.