Xiao Yan Lin v. LORETTA E. LYNCH, Attorney General

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
XIAO YAN LIN,
Petitioner,
v.
LORETTA E. LYNCH, Attorney General,
Respondent.
No. 12-70212
Agency No. A095-648-447
MEMORANDUM*
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Submitted February 2, 2016**
Pasadena, California
Before: REINHARDT, PAEZ, and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges.
Xiao Yan Lin (“Lin”) petitions for review of the Board of Immigration
Appeals’ (“BIA”) denial of her motion to reopen. We deny the petition.
Lin originally applied for asylum in 2003, claiming that she had fled China
to escape a marriage arranged to satisfy her father’s debt. The Immigration Judge
FILED
FEB 12 2016
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

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(“IJ”) denied Lin’s application. In 2011, Lin filed an untimely motion to reopen,
claiming that she converted to Protestantism after arriving in the United States, and
that she feared religious persecution if forced to return to China. 8 U.S.C. § 1229a.
1. The BIA did not abuse its discretion by concluding that Lin failed to
demonstrate changed country conditions in China that would excuse the
untimeliness of her motion. See Movsisian v. Ashcroft, 395 F.3d 1095, 1098 (9th
Cir. 2005) (holding that the denial of a motion to reopen is reviewed for abuse of
discretion). The BIA reasonably found that persecution of Protestants like Lin was
ongoing but had not increased in China between 2003 and 2011. The BIA relied
on country condition reports from 2009 and 2010, which stated that the Chinese
government “continued” to repress certain Protestant groups. Lin did present some
evidence that persecution increased during and after the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Given the conflicting evidence, however, we cannot reject as “arbitrary” the BIA’s
conclusion that there was no increase in the persecution of Protestants.
Ontiveros-Lopez v. INS., 213 F.3d 1121, 1124 (9th Cir. 2000) (internal quotation
marks omitted).
2. Lin’s additional challenges to the BIA’s decision also fail. First, the BIA did
not mischaracterize Lin’s motion to reopen as based solely on changed personal
circumstances. Rather, the BIA satisfied this court’s holding in 2014 that “if there
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is sufficient evidence of changed conditions in the receiving country, there is
nothing in the plain language of the regulation that prevents a petitioner from
referring to his personal circumstances to establish the materiality of that
evidence.” Chandra v. Holder, 751 F.3d 1034, 1037 (9th Cir. 2014). The BIA
properly denied Lin’s motion due to the lack of evidence demonstrating changed
country conditions relating to her conversion to Protestantism. Second, the BIA
sufficiently assessed Lin’s evidence of changed country conditions. Najmabadi v.
Holder, 597 F.3d 983, 990 (9th Cir. 2010) (rejecting the argument that “where the
BIA has given reasoned consideration to the petition, and made adequate findings,
it must expressly parse or refute on the record each individual argument or piece of
evidence offered by the petitioner”) (quoting Wang v. BIA, 437 F.3d 270, 275 (2d
Cir. 2006). Third, the BIA did not abuse its discretion when it discounted a flyer
allegedly received by Lin’s aunt in China, because that flyer was “unsigned and
unauthenticated.”
Petition DENIED.
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