Court Opinion

ID: 9378801
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-13 17:01:24.776637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:03.731187
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                        FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                       MAR 13 2023
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                              FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ROSA ESTEFANIE GARCIA-LINARES,                  No.    18-72941

                Petitioner,                     Agency No. A202-144-154

 v.
                                                MEMORANDUM*
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,

                Respondent.

                     On Petition for Review of an Order of the
                         Board of Immigration Appeals

                              Submitted March 13, 2023**
                               San Francisco, California

Before: FRIEDLAND, BADE, and KOH, Circuit Judges.

      Petitioner Rosa Estefanie Garcia-Linares petitions for review of an order of

the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing her appeal from the decision

of an Immigration Judge (IJ) denying her application for asylum, withholding of

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      **
             The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). 1 We have

jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We deny the petition for review in part and

dismiss in part.

      Garcia-Linares’s claims for asylum and withholding of removal fail because

the IJ reasonably discounted her testimony—the only evidence offered to support

the requested relief—after concluding Garcia-Linares was not credible. As the

BIA noted, the inconsistencies in Garica-Linares’s testimony cited by the IJ were

“significant,” and Garcia-Linares was unable to explain these inconsistencies

despite being given the opportunity to do so. On appeal, Garcia-Linares states that

these inconsistencies were due to her “nervous state,” an argument that was

considered and fairly rejected by the IJ. Because substantial evidence supports the

adverse credibility finding, and because Garcia-Linares offers no other evidence in

support of her claims for asylum and withholding of removal, these claims were

properly rejected.2 See, e.g., Yali Wang v. Sessions, 861 F.3d 1003, 1007, 1009

      1
         The BIA concluded that Garcia-Linares waived any challenge to the IJ’s
denial of her CAT claim by failing to present any substantive argument in support
of this claim in her appeal to the BIA. Therefore, she did not exhaust her CAT
claim, and we lack jurisdiction to review it. See Abebe v. Mukasey, 554 F.3d 1203,
1208 (9th Cir. 2009) (en banc) (per curiam); see also Alanniz v. Barr, 924 F.3d
1061, 1069 (9th Cir. 2019) (holding that review of the petitioner’s brief to the BIA
confirmed that he failed to argue he was entitled to CAT relief before the BIA, and
thus the BIA properly found he did not challenge the IJ’s CAT determination).
       2
         The agency also rejected Garcia-Linares’s claim for asylum on the
alternate ground that she “did not establish that she was targeted on account of her
membership” in any protected group. We need not reach Garcia-Linares’s

                                         2
(9th Cir. 2017).

      PETITION DENIED IN PART AND DISMISSED IN PART.

challenge to that finding because the agency’s adverse credibility finding is
dispositive.

                                          3