NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

LINA QIN; YONG MA, 

Petitioners, 

 v. 

MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney 

General, 

Respondent.

No. 16-72455 

Agency No. A205-538-339 

MEMORANDUM*

On Petition for Review of an Order of the

Board of Immigration Appeals

Submitted May 11, 2022**

Pasadena, California

Before: IKUTA, NGUYEN, and OWENS, Circuit Judges.

Lina Qin, a native and citizen of China, petitions for review of the Board of 

Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) decision dismissing her appeal of the immigration 

judge’s (“IJ”) decision denying her application (and the rider application of her 

husband, Yong Ma) for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the 

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision 

without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

FILED

MAY 18 2022

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
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Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). As the parties are familiar with the facts, 

we do not recount them here. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we 

review adverse credibility determinations and denials of asylum, withholding, and 

CAT relief for substantial evidence. Wang v. Sessions, 861 F.3d 1003, 1007 (9th 

Cir. 2017). We deny the petition for review.

Qin first challenges the adverse credibility determination. But at least three 

of the four grounds the BIA cited in upholding the IJ’s adverse credibility 

determination are supported by substantial evidence. First, the transcripts of Qin’s 

and Ma’s testimony support the existence of inconsistencies about who received 

the threats of sterilization. 

Second, substantial evidence supports the determination that contradictions 

regarding the timeline of Qin’s actions prior to the abortion procedure existed 

within her testimony and also between the bulk of the petitioners’ testimony on one 

hand and Qin’s asylum statement and her mother’s letter on the other. Qin argues

that her written statement can be interpreted such that it is consistent with her 

testimony. But because there are two plausible interpretations of her statement, 

“[i]t cannot be said . . . that the evidence compels the interpretation of the evidence 

advocated by the Petitioner . . . .” Jiang v. Holder, 754 F.3d 733, 740 (9th Cir. 

2014), overruled on other grounds by Alam v. Garland, 11 F.4th 1133 (9th Cir. 

2021). 
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Third, substantial evidence supports the finding that Qin “testified 

inconsistently regarding her level of resistance when she was taken to the operating 

room” and “also omitted references to resisting the family planning officials and 

being restrained during the abortion procedure from her asylum statement.” Qin 

argues that her testimony about her level of resistance was not inconsistent, but a 

“reasonable adjudicator would not necessarily be compelled” to interpret Qin’s

testimony in the way she proposes. Lalayan v. Garland, 4 F.4th 822, 838 (9th Cir. 

2021). Further, the BIA permissibly treated Qin’s omissions as probative of 

credibility because a reasonable adjudicator could classify the new facts as a form 

of suspicious bolstering. See Iman v. Barr, 972 F.3d 1058, 1068 (9th Cir. 2020)

(“[O]missions are probative of credibility to the extent that later disclosures, if 

credited, would bolster an earlier, and typically weaker, asylum application.”).

We need not consider the BIA’s fourth ground for upholding the adverse 

credibility determination because, even if that ground is not supported by 

substantial evidence, a reasonable adjudicator could find that the first three 

inconsistencies justified an adverse credibility determination under the totality of 

the circumstances. See Shrestha v. Holder, 590 F.3d 1034, 1039-40 (9th Cir. 

2010). Although Qin argues that the inconsistencies are cherry-picked and trivial, 

the BIA did not act impermissibly when it concluded that the inconsistencies were 

related to the heart of the asylum claim, rendering them particularly weighty. See
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id. at 1046-47 (“Although inconsistencies no longer need to go to the heart of the 

petitioner’s claim, when an inconsistency is at the heart of the claim it doubtless is 

of great weight.”).

Qin next argues that she is eligible for asylum. To the extent that she argues 

that her documentary evidence alone meets her burden, substantial evidence 

supports the BIA’s contrary conclusion. The BIA permissibly weighed the IJ’s 

finding that some documentary evidence contained inconsistencies and its own 

conclusion about the value of the abortion certificate “with other evidence of 

record” to conclude that Qin was not eligible for asylum. Garland v. Dai, 141 S. 

Ct. 1669, 1680 (2021). Qin alternatively argues that she is eligible for withholding 

of removal, but “an applicant who is unable to show a ‘reasonable possibility’ of 

future persecution [to demonstrate eligibility for asylum] ‘necessarily fails to 

satisfy the more stringent standard for withholding of removal.’” Silva v. Garland, 

993 F.3d 705, 719 (9th Cir. 2021) (citation omitted).

Finally, Qin argues that she is entitled to relief under the CAT. But contrary 

to her contention, the BIA did not decide her claim in an improperly cursory 

manner. Rather, the BIA (and the IJ, with whom the BIA agreed) permissibly 

concluded that the country conditions reports did not show that Qin faces a 

particularized risk of torture. See Dhital v. Mukasey, 532 F.3d 1044, 1051-52 (9th 

Cir. 2008).
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PETITION FOR REVIEW DENIED.