Cui Lin v. Eric H. Holder Jr.

MEMORANDUM

Cui Ping Lin petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’s (“BIA”) decision affirming the order of the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denying her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We deny the petition.

The IJ’s adverse credibility determination is supported by substantial evidence. Shrestha v. Holder, 590 F.3d 1034, 1039 (9th Cir.2010). The IJ identified two instances of inconsistencies in Lin’s testimony that are entitled to great weight because they go to the heart of Lin’s claims. Id. at 1047 .

First, Lin gave conflicting testimony about when she first heard or became aware of Falun Gong. On cross-examination, she testified that she had “never even heard of’ Falun Gong before April 2005. Later, she testified that she first learned about the Chinese government’s repression of Falun Gong in 1999, when she saw television coverage of the government’s massacres of Falun Gong practitioners. When the IJ questioned her about this inconsistency, she claimed that in 1999 she could not understand what she was seeing on television because she had not yet started school. But as the IJ noted, Lin…