Carlos Garcia-Alvarez v. Eric Holder, Jr.

MEMORANDUM

Petitioner Carlos Daniel Garcia-Alvarez, a native and citizen of El Salvador who now resides in Washington State, petitions for review of the decision issued by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), in which it affirmed the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his claims for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). For the reasons stated below, we deny the petition.

1. Because the BIA reviewed and adopted the IJ’s adverse credibility determination, we review for substantial evidence both the BIA’s and IJ’s adverse credibility findings. See Cui v. Holder, 712 F.3d 1332, 1336 (9th Cir.2013). Under the substantial evidence standard, we may reverse the credibility determination only if the evidence presented by Garcia-Alvarez was “ ‘so compelling that no reasonable factfinder could find that [he] was not credible.’ ” Malkandi v. Holder, 576 F.3d 906, 917 (9th Cir.2008) (quoting Farah v. Ashcroft, 348 F.3d 1153, 1156 (9th Cir.2003)).

2. Even assuming Garcia-Alvarez established an extraordinary circumstance justifying his untimely application for asylum, and that he filed his application within a reasonable time period…