Yong Zheng v. Eric Holder, Jr.
Opinion
Opinion
MEMORANDUM
The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirmed the immigration judge (“IJ”)’s rejection of Yong Zhong Zheng’s applications for asylum and withholding of removal because his testimony was not credible. The facts are known to the parties; we do not repeat them except as necessary.
Because the BIA adopted the decision of the IJ pursuant to Matter of Burbano, 20 I. & N. Dec. 872 (BIA 1994) without including any independent analysis, we “look through the BIA’s decision and treat the IJ’s decision as the final agency decision.” Tamang v. Holder, 598 F.3d 1083, 1088 (9th Cir.2010); see also Joseph v. Holder, 600 F.3d 1235, 1239-40 (9th Cir.2010).
The IJ applied the appropriate preREAL ID Act standard to determine Zheng’s credibility. Cf. Shrestha v. Holder, 590 F.3d 1034, 1039 (9th Cir.2010). As such, we will uphold the IJ’s credibility finding even if “some of the factors the IJ relied upon are either unsupported or irrelevant, so long as one of the identified grounds is supported by substantial evidence and goes to the heart of [Zheng’s] claim of persecution.” Li v. Ashcroft, 378 F.3d 959, 964 (9th Cir.2004) (internal quotation marks omitted).