Changmin Jiang v. William Barr


NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS AUG 14 2019 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT CHANGMIN JIANG, No. 16-71241 Petitioner, Agency No. A200-252-249 v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted August 12, 2019** Pasadena, California Before: CALLAHAN, FISHER,*** and R. NELSON, Circuit Judges. Petitioner Changmin Jiang petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order dismissing his appeal from an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his application for asylum and withholding of removal and his request for * 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). *** The Honorable D. Michael Fisher, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting by designation. protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”).1 Petitioner, a Chinese citizen, was arrested by police officers while attending a Christian home-church gathering in China, detained for five days, interrogated, and beaten. Petitioner was released on conditions that he pay a bail bond, not attend home-church gatherings or contact home-church members, report to the police on a weekly basis, and during those reporting sessions, report his weekly activities. After reporting 12 to 13 times, Petitioner fled China to the United States. “We review denials of asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT relief for substantial evidence and will uphold a denial supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole.” Wang v. Sessions, 861 F.3d 1003, 1007 (9th Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks omitted). “We may reverse the decision of the [BIA] only if the applicant shows that the evidence compels the conclusion that the asylum decision was incorrect.” Gu v. Gonzales, 454 F.3d 1014, 1018 (9th Cir. 2006). 1. Petitioner contends that the BIA’s determination that he is ineligible for asylum based on his past persecution and well-founded fear of future persecution is not supported by substantial evidence. In Guo v. Sessions, 897 F.3d 1208, 1211 (9th Cir. 2018), we recently held 1 Petitioner does not contest the BIA’s denial of his petition for withholding of removal in this petition. 2 that substantial evidence compelled a finding of past persecution in circumstances that are substantially similar to these. Like here, the petitioner in Guo was arrested while attending Christian home-church services, slapped in the face and beaten during an interrogation, detained for a period of days, and released only upon payment of a bond. Id. The petitioner’s conditions of release prohibited him from attending home-church gatherings, required him to report to the police weekly, and subjected him to arrest for violating either release condition. Id. Given these similarities, Guo controls the outcome of this petition for review. “[T]he evidence compels a finding of past persecution, thus requiring us to remand ...

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