Xiao Lan Zheng v. John Ashcroft, Attorney General

Xiao Lan Zheng, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, petitions for review of the denial of his applications for asylum and withholding of removal. He claims that local Chinese officials forced his wife, Xiu Qin Wen, to abort their first child because they had not reached the legal age for marriage and were not authorized to have a child. Furthermore, he claims that the officials fined the couple for violating family planning polices and instructed one of them to report for sterilization after Wen’s second pregnancy. The Immigration Judge (“IJ”) found that Zheng was not credible, and the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) summarily affirmed. We grant the petition for review because substantial evidence does not support the IJ’s adverse credibility finding. We conclude, therefore, that Zheng is automatically eligible for asylum, and remand to the BIA to exercise its discretion whether to grant Zheng asylum and to determine in the first instance whether Zheng is eligible for withholding of removal.

I. Factual and PROoeduRAl Background

Zheng testified before the IJ to the following events. He was born in the town of Lunchen in Fuqing city, which is located in the…