United States v. 2020-07-14 | 18-73143 | WEI XIE V. WILLIAM BARR | nonprecedential | memorandum disposition |

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

WEI XIE,

Petitioner,

v.

WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General,

Respondent.

No. 18-73143

Agency No. A206-543-158

MEMORANDUM
*

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

Submitted July 10, 2020
**

Honolulu, Hawaii

Before: OWENS, FRIEDLAND, and R. NELSON, Circuit Judges.

Wei Xie, a native and citizen of China, petitions for review of a decision of
the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) dismissing his appeal from an order of
an immigration judge (“IJ”) denying his application for asylum and 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).
FILED

JUL 14 2020

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

2
removal.
1
Xie contends that his wife was forced to obtain an abortion by Chinese
authorities when she was more than six months pregnant with twins, and that Xie
was beaten and arrested by those authorities for attempting stop the procedure. We
have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we deny the petition.
Substantial evidence supports the agency’s adverse credibility
determination. See Bhattarai v. Lynch, 835 F.3d 1037, 1042 (9th Cir. 2016)
(describing standard of review). The agency identified several reasonable concerns
with the “inherent plausibility” of Xie’s account. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii).
These included: (1) doubts about why Xie and his wife would choose to hide from
authorities and their shared employer in the home of a relative who worked for the
same employer, with Xie continuing to commute to work in a company shuttle that
picked him up and dropped him off at this home; (2) skepticism about the
likelihood that the couple would travel for leisure out of the country while Xie’s
wife was allegedly five months pregnant and trying to hide the pregnancy from the
authorities; and (3) the absence of “any particular plan” for the birth despite her
having seen a private doctor, which the agency found implausible given the
advanced stage of the pregnancy, the fact that the couple were expecting twins, and
the fact that Xie’s wife was in her early forties.

1
Xie also applied for protection under the Convention Against Torture
(“CAT”), but his petition for review does not challenge the agency’s denial of
CAT protection.

3
Although it is sometimes difficult to draw the line “between an IJ’s
legitimate application of common sense, on the one hand, and an IJ’s
[impermissible] reliance on speculation or conjecture in determining that a fact
alleged by a petitioner is implausible on the other,” Jibril v. Gonzales, 423 F.3d
1129, 1135 (9th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted), in this case we
conclude the agency legitimately relied upon common sense and record-based
reasons why Xie’s account was inherently implausible. Because “we must uphold
the IJ’s adverse credibility determination so long as even one basis is supported by
substantial evidence,” and the evidence does not compel a conclusion contrary to
the agency’s regarding the inherent plausibility of Xie’s account, we cannot disturb
the agency’s adverse credibility determination. Rizk v. Holder, 629 F.3d 1083,
1088 (9th Cir. 2011).
2

Once the adverse credibility determination is upheld, Xie’s claims for
asylum and withholding of removal fail. Absent Xie’s discredited testimony, we
cannot conclude that the record compels a finding either that Xie suffered past

2
Although “lack of corroboration” was another of the grounds for the
agency’s decision, we conclude that the agency’s “non-corroboration grounds for
the adverse credibility determination” are “supported by substantial evidence,” and
we therefore need not decide whether the IJ provided adequate “notice of the
specific corroborative evidence that was required and an opportunity to provide it
or explain why [Xie] cannot reasonably obtain it.” Bhattarai, 835 F.3d at 1043.
We acknowledge that lack of corroboration was a significant point of emphasis in
the IJ’s reasoning. But we conclude that the BIA properly extracted sufficient non-
corroboration grounds from the IJ’s decision.

4
persecution or that he has a well-founded fear of future persecution. See 8 C.F.R.
§ 1208.13(b) (asylum); id. § 1208.16(b) (withholding of removal).
PETITION DENIED.