Fu

MEMORANDUM

Keda Fu petitions for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirming an Immigration Judge’s (IJ) denial of his application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). We grant the petition in part and remand to the BIA.

1. The BIA’s conclusion that Fu “has not demonstrated that he has a well-founded fear of persecution based on a protected ground ... or that it is more likely than not that he would be persecuted on account of a protected ground” was not supported by substantial evidence. It rested on an erroneous finding — that there was no objective reason to believe that the Chinese government knew Fu had disclosed information about his salary. Fu credibly testified that, before he left the ship: (1) the chief engineer had made jokes about the Chinese seamen’s low salary, attributing his knowledge of their salary to Fu; (2) the political commissar on the ship, whose job it was to report to government officials, had discovered Fu’s friendship with the chief engineer and warned Fu to stop talking to him; and (3) the political commissar knew that Fu had disclosed his salary to the chief…