Opinion ID: 77006
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Yang's Asylum Eligibility

Text: 11 We now turn to the merits of Yang's claim. Specifically, we will address whether substantial evidence supports the IJ's finding that Yang failed to demonstrate eligibility for asylum under the INA. To the extent that the IJ's decision was based upon a legal determination, we review the IJ's decision de novo. Mohammed v. Ashcroft, 261 F.3d 1244, 1247-48 (11th Cir.2001). We review the IJ's factual determinations under the substantial evidence standard, and must affirm the [IJ's] decision if it is supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole. Al Najjar v. Ashcroft, 257 F.3d 1262, 1283-84 (11th Cir.2001) (citation omitted) (transitional-rules cases); see also INA § 242(b)(4)(B), 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B) (administrative findings of fact are conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary). To reverse the IJ's decision, we must conclude that the record not only supports such a conclusion, but compels it. INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481 n. 1, 112 S.Ct. 812, 815 n. 1, 117 L.Ed.2d 38 (1992) (emphasis in original). 12 An alien who is present in the United States may apply for asylum. Section 208(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) gives the Attorney General discretion to grant political asylum to any alien determined to be a refugee within the meaning of the INA. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A); 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1). A refugee is defined as one who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home 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. Id. 13 To establish asylum eligibility, the alien must, with specific and credible evidence, establish past persecution on account of a statutorily listed factor, or a well-founded fear that the statutorily listed factor will cause such future persecution. 8 C.F.R. §§ 208.13(a) and (b); Al Najjar, 257 F.3d at 1287. An applicant must demonstrate that his or her fear of persecution is subjectively genuine and objectively reasonable. Id. at 1289. The subjective component is generally satisfied by the applicant's credible testimony that he or she genuinely fears persecution. Id. In most cases, the objective prong can be fulfilled either by establishing past persecution or that he or she has a `good reason to fear future persecution.' Id. 14 In 1996, Congress amended the definition of the term refugee to include [a] person who has been forced to abort a pregnancy or to undergo involuntary sterilization, or who has been persecuted for failure or refusal to undergo such a procedure or for other resistance to a coercive population control program. INA § 101(a)(42)(B), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(B). See also In re X-P-T-, 21 I.&N. Dec. 634, 638, 1996 WL 727127 (BIA 1996). The definition also includes a person who has a well founded fear that he or she will be forced to undergo such a procedure or subject to persecution for such failure, refusal, or resistance . . . INA § 101(a)(42)(B). 15
16 We look first to whether Yang was persecuted or has a well-founded fear of persecution. Because we cannot conclude that the record compels a contrary finding than that made by the IJ, we credit the IJ's finding that Yang did not demonstrate past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of her political opinion. Specifically, Yang failed to establish that the Officials' alleged attempts to sterilize her made her eligible for asylum. The IJ correctly found that Yang failed to provide sufficient evidence indicating that: (1) any injection she received was intended to sterilize her instead of a hormone injection used as a birth-control measure; 3 and (2) she was allergic to anesthesia, or that the Officials's attempts to sterilize her were thwarted by her reaction to the anesthesia. 4 Moreover, the State Department's 2001 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and its 1998 Profile of Asylum Claims and Country Conditions for China indicate that Yang's home province, the Fujian province, is known for its lax enforcement of China's family-planning policies. 17
18 Because we conclude that the record does not compel us to find that Yang was forced to undergo a sterilization procedure, we next must look to whether she was persecuted for failure or refusal to undergo such a procedure. INA § 101(a)(42)(B), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(B). Yang first asserts that the fine that she was forced to pay when she gave birth to her second child amounted to persecution for failure to follow China's official policy concerning child birth. The evidence indicates, however, that the fines were paid by Yang or her family within three days of assessment, indicating that she did not dispute the fine. Furthermore, a single fine is not akin to a sterilization procedure or forced abortion. 19
20 Although we did not find substantial evidence in the record that would compel us to conclude that Yang was forcibly sterilized, we do believe, and the IJ did not find to the contrary, that Yang was credible in her claim that she was forced to undergo an atrocious injection procedure to which she fought back by kicking and screaming. This claim could constitute other resistance to a coercive population control program. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(B). There is very little case law analyzing the other resistance clause in the asylum statute. Additionally, a review of the legislative history behind the 1996 Amendment does not reveal any clear intent from Congress on the scope of the other resistance clause. 5 21 The Ninth Circuit is the only federal court to undergo an in-depth analysis of the other resistance clause in the asylum statute. See Li v. Ashcroft, 356 F.3d 1153, 1160 (9th Cir.2004) (en banc). 6 The Li court held that the applicant, Li, was persecuted for other resistance to a population control program within the meaning of the asylum statute, when she vocally resisted the marriage-age restriction . . . [and] the one-child policy, in China. Id. Li announced to Officials that she opposed the government's birth-control policy. Id. at 1158. 7 Two days later, Officials, forcibly took Li to a birth control center where she was put on a bench and held down by two nurses . . . Li's uterus, vagina, and cervix were probed while she resisted physically by kicking and screaming in fear. Id. The Officials then told her that at any time in the future, she could be subjected to the same sort of test, and that if she were pregnant, she would be subject to forced abortion and her boyfriend sterilized. Id. The court found that her verbal resistance to the policy and her physical resistance in the ensuing rape-like event, Id. at 1158 n. 4, constituted other resistance to a coercive population control program. Id. at 1160. 22 In the present case, Yang's forced injection experience bears similarities to the persecution that occurred in the Li case. First, like the physical force used against Li, Yang's testimony indicates that she was forcibly taken to the hospital by five or six Officials. Next, like Li's verbal and physical resistance, which triggered her persecution by Chinese birth-control officials, Yang's testimony also indicates that she verbally and physically resisted as they forced her out of her home and onto the hospital bed. 23 Furthermore, Yang's two forced IUD procedures by the Chinese Officials could also be considered other resistance. Recently, the Fourth Circuit, in denying relief to the petitioner in Li v. Gonzales, 405 F.3d 171, 179 (4th Cir.2005), explained that if the petitioner's arguments on appeal were not so narrowly limited to [a] single act of insertion, [the court] might well be prepared to hold that the compulsory insertion and required usage of an IUD constitutes `persecution' within the meaning of 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42). 8 Additionally, the Third Circuit recognized in Fang v. Ashcroft, 114 Fed.Appx. 486 (3rd Cir.2004), that the [BIA] and the Circuit Courts have not specifically addressed whether a woman who unwillingly acquiesced to obtaining an IUD `has been persecuted' under the [other resistance] clause. Therefore, the Fang court remanded the case to the BIA for further proceedings. Similarly, in Lin v. Ashcroft, 385 F.3d 748, 757 (7th Cir.2004), the court noted that the IJ did not determine whether Lin's three involuntary IUD insertions and mandatory checkups could constitute persecution as a `coercive population control program' under the amended statutory definition. Most recently, the Seventh Circuit in Zheng v. Gonzales, 409 F.3d 804, 806 (7th Cir.2005), noted that the BIA assumed that the involuntary insertion of IUDs constitutes persecution pursuant to a `coercive population control program' for purposes of § 1101(a)(42)(B). Because the BIA assumed that persecution under the expanded definition of refugee can be established on the basis of forcible IUD insertions alone rather than definitively deciding the issue, the Court remanded the case for the BIA to decide. Id. at 811-12. 24 Moreover, in Lin, the Court mentioned that having a government imposed IUD illegally removed could constitute a type of other resistance to a coercive population control program. Lin, 385 F.3d at 757. The Lin court pointed out that the IJ left open the question whether the petitioner's efforts to have IUDs, which were forced upon her by Chinese Officials, removed by a private doctor, is the type of resistance that Congress sought to protect under the asylum statute. Id. The Lin court also remanded these issues to the BIA. Id. 25 We agree with the Seventh Circuit that removing an IUD against China's official policy could be considered other resistance to a coercive population control program. 9 We also note that the removal of IUDs from women of childbearing age without the permission of family planning authorities is punishable as a crime in China. See, e.g., Xiaorong Li, License to Coerce: Violence Against Women, State Responsibility, and Legal Failures in China's Family-Planning Program, 8 Yale J.L. & Fem. 145, 171-72 (1996). Thus, like the Third and Seventh Circuits, we will defer to the BIA's decision on these issues concerning the other resistance to a coercive population control program clause in the 1996 Congressional Amendment. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(B).