Opinion ID: 1390221
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Withholding of Removal based on the Alleged Forced Sterilization of Spouse

Text: Even if the IJ erred in finding petitioner to be non-credible, we hold that petitioner is ineligible for withholding of removal to the extent that his claim of persecution is based on the asserted forced sterilization of his alleged spouse. See Gui Yin Liu, 508 F.3d at 722-23. In a similar case, our Court has recently held that a withholding of removal claim based solely on the forced sterilization of petitioner's wife is doomed. Gui Yin Liu, 508 F.3d at 722-23; cf. Shi Liang Lin v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 494 F.3d 296, 308 (2d Cir.2007) (en banc) ([A]pplicants can became candidates for asylum relief only based on persecution that they themselves have suffered or must suffer.). The text of 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3), [4] the provision governing withholding of removal, does not countenance a claim of derivative persecution. Like a claim for asylum, withholding of removal requires a showing of direct personal persecution. A petitioner who has not personally experienced persecution . . . on a protected ground is ineligible to obtain withholding of removal relief. Id. at 306. Therefore, petitioner cannot base his claim for withholding of removal on his wife's alleged forcible abortion. It is not clear whether petitioner also bases a claim for relief on the alleged sterilization of his cousin. Such a claim would meet with the same problems as one derived from a spouse's persecution and is, for the same reasons, foreclosed. [5]