UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 11-2299

FANG PING HUANG,

Petitioner,

v.

ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., Attorney General,

Respondent.

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

Appeals.

Submitted: June 1, 2012 Decided: July 2, 2012

Before GREGORY, KEENAN, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.

Petition denied by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Joshua Bardavid, New York, New York, for Petitioner. Stuart 

Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Blair T. O’Connor, 

Assistant Director, Edward C. Durant, Office of Immigration 

Litigation, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, 

D.C., for Respondent.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Fang Ping Huang, a native and citizen of the People’s 

Republic of China, petitions for review of an order of the Board 

of Immigration Appeals (“Board”) dismissing his appeal from the 

immigration judge’s order denying his applications for asylum, 

withholding from removal and withholding under the Convention 

Against Torture (“CAT”). We deny the petition for review.

An alien has the burden of showing he is eligible for 

relief. In order to show eligibility for asylum, he must show 

that he was subjected to past persecution or has a well-founded 

fear of persecution on account of a protected ground such as 

political opinion. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(1) (2012). If the 

applicant establishes past persecution, he has the benefit of a 

rebuttable presumption of a well-founded fear of persecution. 

This court will uphold the Board’s decision unless it 

is manifestly contrary to the law and an abuse of discretion. 

The standard of review of the agency’s findings is narrow and 

deferential. Factual findings are affirmed if supported by 

substantial evidence. Substantial evidence exists to support a 

finding unless the evidence was such that any reasonable 

adjudicator would have been compelled to conclude to the 

contrary. Therefore, we review an adverse credibility 

determination for substantial evidence and give broad deference 

to the Board’s credibility determination. The Board and the 
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immigration judge must provide specific, cogent reasons for 

making an adverse credibility determination. We recognize that 

omissions, inconsistent statements, contradictory evidence, and 

inherently improbable testimony are appropriate bases for making 

an adverse credibility determination. The existence of only a 

few such inconsistencies, omissions, or contradictions can be 

sufficient for the Board to make an adverse credibility 

determination as to the alien’s entire testimony regarding past 

persecution. An inconsistency can serve as a basis for an 

adverse credibility determination even if it does not go to the 

heart of the alien’s claim. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii)

(2006); see also Djadjou v. Holder, 662 F.3d 265, 272-74 (4th 

Cir. 2011) (case citations omitted). An adverse credibility 

finding can support a conclusion that the alien did not 

establish past persecution. See Dankam v. Gonzales, 495 F.3d 

113, 121-23 (4th Cir. 2007); see also Chen v. Attorney General, 

463 F.3d 1228, 1231 (11th Cir. 2006) (denial of asylum relief 

can be based solely upon an adverse credibility finding). 

We conclude that substantial evidence supports the 

adverse credibility finding. The immigration judge listed 

specific and cogent reasons in support of the finding. We note 

that the immigration judge was not obligated to accept Huang’s 

reasons for the inconsistencies, even if the reasons were 

plausible. See Dankam, 495 F.3d at 122. We further conclude, 
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that after reviewing the independent evidence, including the 

State Department’s report, the record does not compel a 

different result.*

We deny the petition for review. We dispense with

oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are 

adequately presented in the materials before the court and 

argument would not aid the decisional process.

PETITION DENIED

 * Huang has abandoned any challenge to the denial of relief 

under the CAT by failing to raise an issue in his brief. 

Accordingly, this court will not review this ruling. See

Ngarurih v. Ashcroft, 371 F.3d 182, 189 n.7 (4th Cir. 2004) 

(finding that the failure to raise a challenge in an opening 

brief results in abandonment of that challenge); Edwards v. City 

of Goldsboro, 178 F.3d 231, 241 n.6 (4th Cir. 1999) (same).