NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JAN 10 2019 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT SHAOHUI CHEN, No. 15-73364 Petitioner, Agency No. A074-595-840 v. MEMORANDUM* MATTHEW G. WHITAKER, Acting Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted December 3, 2018 Pasadena, California Before: D.W. NELSON and WARDLAW, Circuit Judges, and PRATT,** District Judge. Shaohui Chen, a native and citizen of China, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) decision affirming the Immigration Judge’s (IJ) denial of his claims for relief from removal. We have jurisdiction pursuant to * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Robert W. Pratt, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Iowa, sitting by designation. 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We grant the petition for review. The BIA found that the IJ’s adverse credibility determination that formed the basis for the IJ’s denial of Chen’s application for asylum and withholding of removal was not clearly erroneous.1 We disagree. First, the IJ and BIA committed legal error by evaluating Chen’s testimony without regard to the nature of the claim he asserted and without mentioning, much less applying, our precedent governing asylum claims premised on opposition to coercive family planning practices. See, e.g., Ming Dai v. Sessions, 884 F.3d 858 (9th Cir. 2018); Nai Yuan Jiang v. Holder, 611 F.3d 1086 (9th Cir. 2010). Second, the IJ’s adverse credibility decision was contradicted by the record and not supported by substantial evidence. See Shire v. Ashcroft, 388 F.3d 1288, 1294 (9th Cir. 2004) (“Where, as here, the BIA adopts the IJ’s credibility determination, we look through the BIA’s decision to examine the IJ’s reasons for deeming the person not credible.”). The IJ found that Chen’s “testimony regarding the gynecological problems his wife had, which he claimed caused him to be targeted for sterilization in her stead, was vague, vacillating, speculative, and uncorroborated.” However, Chen actually testified that neither he nor his wife wanted her to be sterilized once the doctor prohibited his wife’s sterilization based on medical concerns. In addition, 1 Chen did not appeal the denial of his claim for relief under the Convention Against Torture to the BIA. Consequently, he has waived that ground for relief before us. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1). 2 the IJ failed to consider the entire record, assessing only part of Chen’s explanation for how he knew that sterilization would be harmful to his wife. And the IJ also erred by placing great weight on “trivial inconsistencies” in Chen’s testimony. See Bingxu Jin v. Holder, 748 F.3d 959, 965 (9th Cir. 2014) (explaining that “trivial inconsistencies” that “have no bearing on the petitioner’s veracity” cannot form the basis for an adverse credibility determination (internal quotations and citations omitted)). The IJ’s finding that Chen testified inconsistently about his actions after the birth of his ...
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