Opinion ID: 4513018
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Zheng’s flight from China

Text: Next, the IJ pointed to purported inconsistences between Zheng’s account of her escape from China and Yi’s and Lin’s declarations describing Zheng’s treatment after her release from prison. Zheng testified that after she was released 13 Case: 18-14730 Date Filed: 03/05/2020 Page: 14 of 17 from detention members of her church encouraged her to flee to the United States and suggested she go to Guangzhou to obtain a travel visa. She traveled to Guangzhou and obtained a visa from the Mexican embassy. To help evade her reporting requirements, Yi told the village committee that she had been hospitalized. After leaving for Guangzhou, Zheng never returned home, staying in hiding with her mother in a different village until her departure for Mexico. The IJ thought this inconsistent with Yi’s declaration, which said that after Zheng was released from detention “[s]he could not leave far away from home,” “could not participate in gathering,” and “was living in fear . . . of doing anything because she was worried that the police would arrest her again.” AR at 88, 232. But of course the fact that Zheng was afraid of leaving her home does not mean that she did not do so—people frequently do things they fear, especially when circumstances require them to act to escape persecution. That people take action and leave their homes despite fear of coercive government action is, in fact, a fundamental assumption of our asylum law, which requires a demonstration of credible fear of persecution by or with the sanction of the government. See 8