[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 12-15780

Non-Argument Calendar

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Agency No. A087-661-661

GULIIA TURGUNBEKOVNA TABALDIEVA, 

 Petitioner,

versus

US ATTORNEY GENERAL, 

 Respondent.

________________________

Petition for Review of a Decision of the

Board of Immigration Appeals

________________________

(July 1, 2013)

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Before TJOFLAT, MARCUS and FAY, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

Petitioner, Gulia Tabaldieva, a citizen of Kyrgyzstan, was admitted to the 

United States on or about June 1, 2009, on a J-I non-immigrant visa, with 

permission to remain until September 24, 2009. She remained here without 

authorization, and on October 7, 2009 filed an application for asylum with the 

Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”).

In her application, Petitioner asserted that she was physically attacked in 

Kyrgyzstan on three occasions because of her political opinion. The first attack 

occurred on October 15, 2008. After finishing her classes at university, Petitioner 

met two classmates, Kristina and Marat, to go to the university library. The library 

was closed, so Marat arranged to have his brother take them to the State Library. 

Marat’s brother and two men picked them up, but took them to a house, instead of 

the library. At this point, Marat disappeared, and the three men forced Petitioner 

and Kristina into the house, where they beat them and Petitioner became 

unconscious. Both women were in a hospital for two weeks. Petitioner’s parents 

filed a complaint against the attackers, and the court required Marat’s brother to 

pay a fee. Petitioner’s parents persuaded her to write an article about the attack 

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for the newspaper. The article was published on February 1, 2009, and 

criticized local law enforcement for failing to investigate the incident and for being 

corrupt. 

The second attack occurred on February 3, 2009. Two men dressed like 

police officers came to Petitioner’s home and took her to another location, where 

they questioned her about the article, convinced her that the police were not 

corrupt as she claimed, and told her not to write any more articles. They caused 

her “a lot of harm,” so she went to a hospital and did not return to university for 

four weeks.

The third attack occurred on March 7, 2009. At 7:00 p.m., as she was going 

home, a car approached her. The men in the car, one being Marat’s brother, seized 

her, took her to an unknown house where girls were screaming, and said they 

“were going to take advantage of her. A man struck her and she lost 

consciousness. She awakened in a hospital. Her parents filed another complaint 

against Marat’s brother, with no result. 

Following an interview on her application, the DHS asylum officer declined 

to grant asylum, referred her application to an Immigration Judge (“IJ”), and 

commenced removal proceedings. Petitioner conceded removability, renewed her 

application for asylum, and applied for withholding of removal. 

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On August 16, 2011, the IJ held a merits hearing. After hearing Petitioner’s 

testimony and considering the other evidence submitted, the IJ denied her 

applications for asylum and withholding of removal— concluding that her 

testimony was not credible, that she failed to provide reasonably available 

corroborating evidence, and that she had not met her burden for relief—and 

ordered her removal to Kyrgyzstan. On October 11, 2012, the Board of 

Immigration (“BIA”) affirmed the IJ’s decision based on her lack of credibility and 

failure to sufficiently corroborate her claim of persecution.

Petitioner now petitions this court to review the BIA’s decision, affirming 

the IJ’s denial of her application for asylum under the Immigration and Nationality 

Act (“INA”) § 208, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a), and withholding of removal under INA 

§ 241(b)(3), 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3).

1 In her petition for review, she argues that the 

BIA erred in affirming the IJ’s adverse credibility determination, because the 

ruling was not supported by substantial evidence. She also argues that the BIA 

erred in affirming the IJ’s alternative ruling that she was required to and failed to 

corroborate her testimony with specific evidence. 

As an initial matter, our review is limited to the decision of the BIA. 

Therefore, we only address the adverse credibility determination and the necessity 

 1 Tabaldieva included Otabek Kamilov, a citizen of Uzbekistan, as a derivative spouse on 

her application. However, the couple divorced on July 2, 2012, and Kamilov is not a party to the 

petition for review. 

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of corroborating evidence. See Chen v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 463 F.3d 1228, 1232 n.4

(11th Cir. 2006) (refusing to address the merits of a claim because the IJ’s decision 

was based on an adverse credibility determination). n.1 (11th Cir. 2011).

I.

Petitioner argues that the adverse credibility determination was not 

supported by substantial evidence. She testified that she was raped during the 

attacks giving rise to her application, and attempts to explain the inconsistency 

between this testimony and the medical records of her hospital visits after each 

attack, which do not indicate that she was diagnosed with or treated for sexual 

assault. She argues that it is plausible that she did not report the rapes to the 

doctors for the reasons given in the U.S. Department of State 2009 Country Report 

for Kyrgyzstan, which states that rapes were underreported in the country due to 

psychological pressure, cultural traditions, and apathy of law enforcement. She 

also asserts that the inconsistencies in her testimony were too minor to support an 

adverse credibility determination. 

We review only the opinion of the BIA, except to the extent that the BIA 

expressly adopted the IJ’s decision. Chen, 463 F.3d at 1230. We review

credibility determinations under the substantial evidence test, reversing “only if the

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evidence compels a reasonable fact finder to find otherwise.” Id. at 1230-31 

(quotation omitted). 

An applicant for asylum must meet the INA’s definition of a refugee. INA 

§ 208(b)(1), 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1). A “refugee” is

any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality . . . 

and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling 

to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of 

persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, 

religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or 

political opinion.

INA § 101(a)(42)(A), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). 

An applicant for asylum must provide specific and credible evidence 

demonstrating past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution based 

on a statutorily listed factor. Chen, 463 F.3d at 1231. An applicant seeking 

withholding of removal must show that her “life or freedom would be threatened 

. . . because of [her] race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social 

group, or political opinion” if she returned to the country in question. INA 

§ 241(b)(3)(A), 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A). An applicant must demonstrate that it is 

“more-likely-than-not” that she would be persecuted upon returning to her country. 

Tang v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 578 F.3d 1270, 1277 (11th Cir. 2009).

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Under the REAL ID Act of 2005,2 credibility determinations are based on 

the totality of the circumstances, which may include inconsistencies that do not go 

to the “heart of the applicant’s claim.” INA § 208(b)(1)(B)(iii), 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii). Such rulings must be supported by the record rather than 

“personal perceptions” or speculation and conjecture. Tang, 578 F.3d at 1278. 

The BIA may base its determination on “the demeanor, candor, or responsiveness 

of the applicant,” the plausibility of the applicant’s account, the consistency 

between the applicant’s statements “considering the circumstances under which the 

statements were made,” the internal consistency of the applicant’s statements, and 

“the consistency of such statements with other evidence of record.” INA 

§ 208(b)(1)(B)(iii), 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii).

An adverse credibility determination alone may be sufficient to support the 

denial of asylum, especially if the applicant’s testimony was not supported by 

corroborating evidence. Chen, 463 F.3d at 1231. However, even if the applicant is 

found to be incredible, the BIA must consider all of the evidence presented by the 

applicant. Forgue v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 401 F.3d 1282, 1287 (11th Cir. 2005). The 

BIA must offer specific, cogent reasons for its ruling. Id. To challenge an adverse 

credibility determination, a petitioner to this Court must show that it was not 

 2

 The Real ID Act applies to applications, such as Tabaldieva’s, that were filed after 

May 11, 2005. See Chen, 463 F.3d at 1231.

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supported by “specific, cogent reasons” or was not based on substantial evidence. 

Id. The fact that the petitioner provides “tenable” explanations for the doubtful 

portions of her testimony does not compel reversal, particularly in the absence of 

corroborating evidence. Chen, 463 F.3d at 1233.

The BIA relied on the IJ’s specific, cogent reasons for the adverse credibility 

determination. See Forgue, 401 F.3d at 1287. Moreover, the evidence on the 

record would not compel a reasonable fact finder to reverse the BIA’s ruling. See 

Chen, 463 F.3d at 1230-31. Petitioner’s testimony regarding the newspaper article 

that she allegedly wrote criticizing law enforcement was vague, inconsistent, and 

implausible. She could not recall whether she ever saw a copy of the article or 

even read it, whether her name appeared as its author, whether her name appeared 

in the article, or whether her family had a copy of the article. Her testimony that 

she was raped during the attacks was internally inconsistent, and inconsistent with 

her prior statements to an asylum officer and her medical records. Finally, she 

provided details of the attacks in a June 20, 2011 affidavit and during the August 

16, 2011 merits hearing, but was unable to recall any details of the attacks when 

she was interviewed by a social worker during that same time period. 

On this record, substantial evidence supported the BIA’s conclusion that her 

testimony was not credible. Petitioner argues that the inconsistencies in her 

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testimony were too minor to support the BIA’s ruling. Her argument is without 

merit, because an adverse credibility determination may be based on 

inconsistencies that do not go “to the heart of the applicant’s claim.” See INA 

§ 208(b)(1)(B)(iii), 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii).

In light of the adverse credibility determination, Petitioner did not 

sufficiently corroborate her claim that she was persecuted on account of her 

political opinion so as to meet the burden for asylum and withholding of removal. 

See INA § 241(b)(3)(A), 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A); Chen, 463 F.3d at 1231. 

Besides her own testimony, her father’s written statement was the only other 

evidence mentioning the newspaper article that allegedly motivated a retaliatory 

attack against her for her political opinion about police corruption. She also relied 

on her father’s statement that she was attacked because her father sued the 

Kyrgyzstani government for reinstatement of his job. However, she provided no 

evidence to corroborate her father’s statement, and it is unclear how his suit related 

to her political opinion. 

Because of the lack of evidence corroborating the essential elements of her 

claims for relief, the BIA’s adverse credibility determination was sufficient to 

support the denial of asylum. See Chen, 463 F.3d at 1231. Because Petitioner did 

not sustain her burden as to asylum, she also did not meet the higher burden 

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required for withholding of removal. See INA § 241(b)(3)(A), 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1231(b)(3)(A); Tang, 578 F.3d at 1277.

II

Petitioner argues that the BIA erred in affirming the IJ’s alternative ruling 

that, assuming her testimony was credible, she was required to corroborate it by 

submitting a copy of the newspaper article that she wrote on police corruption. 

She asserts that she was not required to corroborate her testimony, and the burden 

of proof was less than a preponderance of the evidence. 

“Where the trier of fact determines that the applicant should provide 

evidence that corroborates otherwise credible testimony, such evidence must be 

provided unless the applicant does not have the evidence and cannot reasonably 

obtain the evidence.” INA § 208(b)(1)(B)(ii), 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(ii). We 

only reverse a determination regarding corroborating evidence under INA 

§ 208(b)(1)(B), if “a reasonable trier of fact [would be] compelled to conclude that 

such corroborating evidence [was] unavailable.” INA § 242(b)(4)(D), 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1252(b)(4)(D). 

Petitioner’s testimony was the only evidence presented as to the availability 

of the newspaper article. She testified that she did not have a copy of the article 

because police visited and searched her home in Kyrgyzstan, leaving it in a mess. 

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However, she later testified that she did not know if she had ever had a copy of the 

article. She said that her parents contacted the editors of the newspaper to obtain a 

copy, but she did not know where the newspaper office was located or whether it 

was still in operation. Her brother’s wife tried to contact a person who worked for 

the newspaper and had helped publish the article, but the person had left the 

country. Petitioner’s testimony alone would not compel a reasonable fact finder to 

conclude that the article was unavailable. See INA § 242(b)(4)(D), 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1252(b)(4)(D). 

Upon review of the record and consideration of the parties’ briefs, we deny 

the petition for review.

PETITION DENIED.

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