Opinion ID: 793015
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Adverse Credibility Determination Based on Implausible Portions of Applicant's Testimony

Text: 10 Chen challenges the IJ's subsidiary findings that portions of her testimony were implausible and the use of those findings in support of the ultimate finding that her testimony was not credible. When an IJ has supported an ultimate finding that an applicant's testimony was not credible by concluding that significant aspects of the testimony were implausible, the decisions of our Court have not been entirely consistent. For example, in Jin Hui Gao v. U.S. Atty. Gen., 400 F.3d 963 (2d Cir.2005), we concluded that the IJ had a supportable basis for finding aspects of [the applicant's] testimony inherently implausible and for concluding that these implausibilities further diminished [his] credibility. Id. at 964. And we have cited approvingly the BIA's view that an adverse credibility finding may be based on inherently improbable testimony. See Diallo v. INS, 232 F.3d 279, 287-88 (2d Cir.2000) (citing In re S-M-J-, 1997 WL 80984, 21 I. & N. Dec. 722, 729). On the other hand, we have also stated that [a]bsent a reasoned evaluation of [an applicant's] explanations, the IJ's conclusion that his story is implausible was based on flawed reasoning ...., Cao, 428 F.3d at 403, and that the IJ must point to valid, Secaida-Rosales v. INS, 331 F.3d at 311, or specific, cogent, Cao, 428 F.3d at 400, reasons for rejecting an applicant's testimony and may not reject testimony based on speculation, Ramsameachire v. Ashcroft, 357 F.3d 169, 178 (2d Cir.2004). 11 We do not find it surprising that some panels would readily accept an IJ's findings that testimony is implausible while others would reject these and other findings bearing on credibility for lack of adequate explanation by the IJ. The point at which a finding that testimony is implausible ceases to be sustainable as reasonable and, instead, is justifiably labeled speculation, in the absence of an IJ's adequate explanation, cannot be located with precision. Cf. Xiao Ji Chen v. U.S. DOJ, 434 F.3d 144, 162, 2006 WL 27427, at  (2d Cir.2006) (The strength of the error-free portions of an IJ's ultimate finding that will permit a panel to state with confidence that a remand would be futile cannot be precisely quantified.). With at least half of the judges of this Court reviewing petitions challenging denials of asylum every day, 1 it is inevitable that some findings of lack of credibility will be deemed supportable by one panel that would not pass muster in the view of another panel. For one panel, a finding of implausibility may seem entirely reasonable; for another, it may seem like speculation. We know of no way to apply precise calipers to all such findings so that any particular finding would be viewed by any three of the 23 judges of this Court as either sustainable or not sustainable. Panels will have to do what judges always do in similar circumstances: apply their best judgment, guided by the statutory standard governing review and the holdings of our precedents, to the administrative decision and the record assembled to support it. While the various statements made in the course of upholding or rejecting the adequacy of a particular finding are often helpful, they cannot become rigid rules of law that dictate the outcome in every case. In the somewhat similar context of reviewing bench trial findings of a district judge under the clearly erroneous standard, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a), we have been authoritatively instructed to uphold a finding unless we are left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed, Inwood Laboratories, Inc. v. Ives Laboratories, Inc., 456 U.S. 844, 855, 102 S.Ct. 2182, 72 L.Ed.2d 606 (1982) (internal quotation marks omitted). We do not fashion legally binding sub-rules that purport to govern determination of when that generalized standard is met. 12 In the pending case, the IJ supported his finding that Chen's testimony lacked credibility in part by pointing to two claims that he considered implausible. First, he had difficulty believing that the authorities, lacking Chen's address, could quickly locate her in a city of one million people just by looking in a neighborhood where young people live. Second, he had difficulty believing that she could escape from detention just because her jailors were not paying attention. We think it entirely reasonable for the IJ to have considered these claims implausible without further explanation and to have relied on them, along with her demeanor and inconsistencies in her testimony, in making the ultimate finding that she was not a credible witness. 13 We need not consider the IJ's alternative ground that, even if Chen was credible, she had not established a well-grounded fear of persecution. The adverse credibility finding with respect to her asylum claim necessarily precludes her claim for withholding of removal, see Wu Biao Chen v. INS, 344 F.3d 272, 275 (2d Cir.2003), and, because Chen has not pursued on appeal her claim for relief under the CAT, that claim is forfeited, see Yueqing Zhang v. Gonzales, 426 F.3d 540, 541 n. 1 (2d Cir.2005).