Siquina-Chox

MEMORANDUM

Jeronimo David Siquina-Chox petitions for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) order affirming an Immigration Judge’s (IJ) denial of his applications for asylum, withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Tor ture. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252 (a), and we deny the petition for review.

The IJ identified specific and cogent reasons to support his adverse credibility finding. See Kaur v. Ashcroft, 379 F.3d 876, 884 (9th Cir.2004). He properly relied on both Siquina-Chox’s initial omission of the guerrillas as a source of persecution and his failure, upon being reminded of his past statements about the guerrillas, to give an account consistent with those past statements. Because these discrepancies regarding the source of his persecution go to the “heart of the asylum claim,” the IJ’s adverse credibility finding is supported by substantial evidence. Ceballos-Castillo v. INS, 904 F.2d 519, 520 (9th Cir.1990).

We need not decide whether guidelines issued by the United Nations and the Immigration and Naturalization Service regarding the treatment of minor asylum applicants apply here, because the IJ’s treatment and evaluation of…