Wakkary

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MATTHEW HENOCH WAKKARY, 

Petitioner, No. 05-71539 v.  Agency No.

A096-141-948

ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., Attorney General, OPINION Respondent.  On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals

Argued and Submitted July 15, 2008—San Francisco, California

Filed March 10, 2009

Before: Richard A. Paez and Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit Judges, and Harold Baer,* District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Berzon

*The Honorable Harold Baer, Jr., United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation. COUNSEL

Robert George Ryan, Law Offices of Eugene C. Wong, Inc., San Francisco, California, for the petitioner.

Ashley B. Han, Jeffrey S. Bucholtz, and Linda S. Wendtland, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for the respon- dent.

OPINION

BERZON, Circuit Judge:

The primary question we decide today concerns whether one’s membership in a “disfavored group” — that is, a group of individuals in a certain country or part of a country, all of whom share a…