Pineda-Orellana

MEMORANDUM

Dina Elizabeth Pineda-Orellana (“Pine-da”) petitions for review of the order by the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissing her appeal from the immigration judge’s decision denying her applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”).

Substantial evidence supports the agency’s determination that Pineda was not credible because of inconsistencies between her hearing testimony and statements she made during her asylum interview. For example, Pineda told the asylum officer that she did not know the reasons why her father and mother were attacked in separate incidents, but at the hearing claimed that both were related to persecution she suffered as a result of her newspaper work. Likewise, Pineda was inconsistent about whether the bus incident in which she witnessed harassment involved guerillas or members of the military, when the incident took place, and whether she took pictures of the perpetrators or merely wrote about the incident. These discrepancies are central to Pineda’s claims about why she was persecuted and by whom, and the agency reasonably rejected her explanations. See Rivera v. Mukasey, 508 F.3d…