Opinion ID: 2567
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Jian Hui Shao's Failure to Demonstrate an Objective Fear of Future Persecution Based on the Birth of Two Children in China

Text: Applying these principles to Jian Hui Shao's claim, the BIA determined that the record did not permit reliable resolution of the first two steps of analysis. Evidence indicated that where, as in petitioner's case, a couple's first child is a girl, Chinese family planning policies sometimes permitted the couple to have a second child. Because Jian Hui Shao had failed to testify credibly as to the circumstances surrounding the birth of his second child, the agency could not determine whether he had ever sought such permission or whether local authorities would, in fact, have viewed his wife's second pregnancy as a violation of family-planning policies. See id. at 202. [6] Even if the policy and violation steps of analysis were resolved in Jian Hui Shao's favor, however, the BIA concluded that his claim for relief failed at the final enforcement step of analysis because the record did not contain persuasive evidence that this birth [of a second child] would trigger enforcement activity in Fujian Province amounting to persecution. Id. In reaching this conclusion, the BIA pointed to State Department Country Profiles reporting on the unevenness and laxity of enforcement of the one-child policy both in Fujian Province and in China. [7] Id. at 200, 202-03 (citing 1998 Profile at 21, 28; 2007 Profile ¶ 87). While acknowledging that, in the State Department's 2006 Country Report for China, reference was made to unattributed reports of forced sterilization in Fujian Province, see id. at 200, 202 (citing 2006 Country Report § 1(f)), the BIA decided that such reports were insufficient to establish the objective reasonableness of Jian Hui Shao's professed fear of sterilization in light of evidence that the use of force was prohibited by Chinese law and State Department interviews with visa applicants from Fujian Province in 2006 yielded `no evidence' of forced abortions. Id. at 203 (quoting 2007 Profile ¶ 99). [8] Although the documents prompting remand in Shou Yung Guo v. Gonzales, 463 F.3d at 113, see supra at [146-47], had not been part of the record at Jian Hui Shao's removal proceedings, the BIA nevertheless considered the possibility that this evidence might support an enforcement finding favorable to petitioner at the third step of analysis. The BIA concluded that it did not because, although one document referenced mandatory sterilization in Changle City after the birth of a second child, nothing in the record indicated that the mandate was carried out through proscribed forced sterilization as opposed to China's well-documented system of offering incentives to obtain compliance with birth control limits. In re J-H-S-, 24 I. & N. Dec. at 203 (noting that [o]n balance, the evidence suggests that physical coercion to achieve compliance with family planning goals is uncommon and unsanctioned by China's national laws, and that the overall policy is much more heavily reliant on incentives and economically-based penalties). The BIA thus concluded that, [a]s a whole, the record lacks persuasive evidence to prove that the mere birth of two children in China would trigger family planning enforcement efforts that would rise to the level of persecution under the circumstances of this case. Id. Accordingly, it dismissed Jian Hui Shao's petition for relief from removal, ruling that he had failed to carry his burden to demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution in China based simply on the birth of his two children in that country. 2. Ji Wen Shi On the same day that the BIA concluded that Jian Hui Shao was not entitled to relief from removal based on his having fathered two children in China, another BIA panel determined that Ji Wen Shi was not entitled to such relief based on the birth of his two children in the United States. Assuming the genuineness of Ji Wen Shi's subjective fear of forced sterilization if returned to China, the BIA indicated that the determinative question was whether petitioner had met his burden of demonstrating an objectively reasonable fear of persecution. In re J-W-S-, 24 I. & N. Dec. at 188. Although the J-W-S panel did not specifically reference the three-part analysis identified in J-H-S-, it appears to have concluded that Ji Wen Shi had carried his burden at the policy and violation steps and, thus, focused its attention almost exclusively on the question of whether petitioner had demonstrated a reasonable possibility of enforcement amounting to persecution on return to China. In deciding this question, the BIA noted that both parties had submitted numerous documents on remand pertaining to China's national one-child policy and the delegation of the policy's enforcement from the national government to provincial and local authorities. [9] To the extent these documents included State Department Country Reports and Profiles, the BIA took administrative notice of the more recent versions of these documents issued since the parties' submissions. As in J-H-S-, the BIA determined that this record, viewed in its entirety, revealed a wide variation in the manner and strictness with which the `one-child' policy is enforced in the various provinces. Id. at 189. Whether Ji Wen Shi's claimed fear of persecution was considered as to China generally or Fujian Province in particular, the panel concluded that the record did not indicate that such a fear was objectively reasonable. Focusing first on whether the evidence demonstrated that the Chinese Government has a national policy of requiring forced sterilization of parents who return with a second child born outside of China, the BIA concluded that it did not. Id. at 192. In so ruling, the BIA decided to accord greater weight to State Department reports than to the Aird affidavits referenced in the remand stipulation. While the Aird affidavits stated that Chinese nationals returning with more than one child could expect to face the same punishment as their countrymen who violated the one-child policy in China, the BIA observed that the affidavits and the attached documents on which they relied pointed to no incidents of forced sterilization of parents who return to China with children born abroad. Id. at 190. [10] It deemed the omission significant because the State Department's China Profile for 2005 stated that American diplomats in China were unaware of any such sterilizations. See id. at 191 (citing 2005 Profile at 24). [11] Even assuming identical penalties for population control violations occurring outside and within China, the BIA concluded that Ji Wen Shi had not convincingly demonstrated an objectively reasonable fear of forced sterilization. While noting that the 2006 Country Report stated that the incentives and pressure used to achieve compliance with China's family-planning policies `sometimes left women with little practical choice but to undergo abortion or sterilization,' id. at 190, the BIA declined to infer that the referenced pressure included physical or mental coercion  because the context for the quoted observation was a discussion of various economic rewards and penalties, id. (emphasis in original). The BIA acknowledged isolated reports of forced sterilization in the documents of record. Id. at 190; see also id. at 193 n. 8, 194 (citing 2002 Country Report § 1(f); 2006 Country Report § 1(f)). Nevertheless, it determined that isolated reports were insufficient to indicate that the applicant would be singled out for this treatment upon his return to China, nor did they demonstrate a pattern or practice of persecution that would provide the applicant a basis for a well-founded fear of persecution in China on account of the birth of two children in the United States while he was outside of China for nearly 15 years. Id. at 190. Rather, the BIA concluded that the enforcement action that a returning Chinese national might reasonably fear in such circumstances consisted of economic fines and penalties. See id. at 191 (and evidence cited therein). Noting that Ji Wen Shi had not argued that he faced stricter enforcement action in his native Fujian Province, the BIA nevertheless considered that possibility in light of evidence pertaining to that province and particularly to Changle City. The BIA focused first on two documents that were also included in the record in Shou Yung Guo: the 2003 Changle City Administrative Opinion and the 2003 Fujian Province Administrative Decision. [12] These documents indicated that Chinese citizens who violated their country's population limits abroad were subject to the same punishments as citizens whose violations occurred in China. Nevertheless, the BIA observed that [n]either document refer[red] to sterilization, much less forced sterilization, as a possible punishment. Id. at 192. To the extent petitioner urged such an inference from an additional Changle City document, referencing mandated sterilization after the birth of a second child, see Changle City Family Planning Policy Leading Team, Opinions in Administering the Family Planning Subjects with Early Marriage and Out of Plan Pregnancy (June 27, 1995) (1995 Changle City Opinion), the BIA was not persuaded because central government policy prohibits physical coercion to compel persons to submit to family planning enforcement, id. at 193, and no evidence had been adduced indicating that Changle City officials nevertheless implemented the sterilization mandate through physical force or other means that would amount to persecution, id. at 192. As in J-H-S-, the BIA cited to State Department reports indicating that family-planning enforcement in Fujian Province was generally lax and uneven, id. at 193, at the same time that it acknowledged the Country Reports' references to reports of forced sterilization of women in Fujian Province, id. at 193 n. 8, 194 (citing 2002 Country Report § 1(f); 2006 Country Report § 1(f)). Again, the BIA accorded the unspecified reports little weight in light of other evidence indicating that visa applicants from Fujian Province in 2006 had made no mention of forcible abortions and that economic penalties were the general means of enforcement. See id. at 194. Finding that the evidence [a]t most ... suggests that the applicant and his wife may face `sanctions and penalties' upon returning to China because of the births of their United States citizen children not ris[ing] to the level of persecution, the BIA determined that Ji Wen Shi had not persuasively demonstrated that his fear of forced sterilization was objectively reasonable. Id. Accordingly, the BIA ruled that Ji Wen Shi had failed to carry his burden of proof in seeking relief from removal. 3. Show Yung Guo On August 2, 2007, approximately two months after its decisions in J-H-S- and J-W-S-, the BIA issued its precedential opinion declining to reopen Show Yung Guo's removal proceedings. See In re S-Y-G-, 24 I. & N. Dec. 247. [13] In so ruling, the BIA considered not only the three documents referenced in this court's remand order, but additional materials submitted by the parties. See id. at 248-49 n. 1 (identifying documents). The BIA further considered Show Yung Guo's argument urging reopening pending resolution of an asylee relative petition filed on her behalf by her husband. Adapting the evidentiary framework articulated in In re J-H-S- to a motion to reopen based on changed country conditions, the BIA stated that an alien may successfully reopen his or her asylum case if, on a case-by-case analysis, the genuine, authentic, and objectively reasonable evidence proves that (1) a relevant change in country conditions occurred, (2) the applicant has violated family planning policy as established in that alien's local province, municipality, or other relevant area, and (3) the violation would be punished in a way that would give rise to a well-founded fear of persecution. Id. at 251 (footnote omitted) (citing In re J-H-S-, 24 I. & N. Dec. 196). Mindful that Show Yung Guo's failure to appeal the 1997 BIA dismissal of her asylum claim meant that the Immigration Judge's credibility determination remain[ed] the law of the case, id. at 250, the BIA construed the remand issue as limited to the following question: had Show Yung Guo produced enough evidence to show changed country conditions in China evidencing both that her two children (a son born in 1988 in China and a daughter born in 1995 in the United States) would be viewed as exceeding birth control limits in her local province, and that the sanctions applicable for such a violation would rise to the level of persecution. Id. at 251. Preliminary to reviewing the record evidence relevant to this question, the BIA noted (1) the law's general inclination to view motions to reopen with disfavor, see id. at 252 (citing INS v. Doherty, 502 U.S. 314, 323, 112 S.Ct. 719, 116 L.Ed.2d 823 (1992)); (2) the Board's broad discretion over motions to reopen, id. ; (3) its disinclination to exercise that discretion favorably in the case of an alien, such as petitioner, who was previously found to have offered incredible testimony to gain immigration benefits, id. at 251; and (4) the movant's burden, in any event, to `establish prima facie eligibility for asylum, i.e., a realistic chance that [s]he will be able to establish eligibility,' id. (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Poradisova v. Gonzales, 420 F.3d 70, 78 (2d Cir.2005)). Focusing on the last point, the BIA concluded that the Changle City and Fujian Province documents relating to Zheng Yu He did not convincingly demonstrate that Fujian authorities would view the birth of Show Yung Guo's second child in the United States as a violation of Chinese law. First, there was a longer interval between the births of Show Yung Guo's children (more than 7 years) than between the births of Zheng Yu He's children (5 ½ years), a potentially relevant factor because provincial law indicates that married couples may apply to have a second child within certain time frames that are being increasingly relaxed. Id. at 256 (citing 2005 Profile at 21). Further, the sanctions referenced in the Changle City and Fujian Province documents were to be levied pursuant to a directive governing penalties for those who, like Zheng Yu He, were government employees and Communist Party members. Show Yung Guo did not claim to be either. See id. Even if these documents had allowed Show Yung Guo to carry her burden at the violation step of analysis, the BIA concluded that they did not provide any basis for petitioner fearing sanctions that would rise to the level of persecution. Id. To the extent these documents referenced sanctions generally, the BIA determined that the word was reasonably understood to refer to prescribed economic ones, as descriptions of those types of sanctions abound in published reports, rather than to proscribed forcible ones. Id. (noting that in J-H-S- and J-W-S-, the BIA had referenced State Department reports describing sanctions as involving job loss and demotion, loss of promotions, expulsion from the Communist Party and attendant loss of employment, and destruction of property). The BIA reached the same conclusion with respect to the Fujian Province Q & A Handbook. [14] The BIA was not convinced that the document's reference to mandatory sterilizations on the birth of a second child reflected any change in policy. See id. at 257. In addition, the BIA observed that the Q & A Handbook gave no indication that forcible sterilizations are mandated in Fujian Province after the birth of a second child. Id. (emphasis in original). The BIA viewed the distinction as key because, under the relevant portions of the Act, refugee protection extends only to instances of `forced' abortions or sterilizations, id. (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)), and documentation on family planning enforcement indicates that efforts are aimed primarily at encouraging compliance with birth limits through incentives, education, and other [non-forcible] methods, id. (citing Population and Family Planning Law (P.R.C.) (promulgated by the Standing Comm. Nat'l People's Cong., Dec. 29, 2001, effective Sept. 1, 2002), reprinted in 2005 Profile app. A at 38-46). As in J-H-S- and J-W-S-, the BIA acknowledged unattributed reports of occasional forced sterilizations. It concluded that the mere mention of such incidents, without details as to when, where, and how often this occurred, does not, on this record, indicate that it is widespread enough to find that the applicant has met her burden of submitting sufficient evidence to warrant reopening of the proceedings. Id. at 256.