Narayan

MEMORANDUM **

Maureen Lata Narayan petitions this court for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals affirming the Immigration Judge’s order of removal and denial of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture. We deny her petition.

We review a BIA decision to determine if it is supported by substantial evidence, and reverse if the evidence compels a contrary conclusion. 1 Because the BIA adopted the IJ’s adverse credibility findings, the IJ’s findings are reviewed under the same standard. 2 All we require is that “an IJ ... point to a ‘specific and cogent’ reason supporting an adverse credibility finding” and that reason identified “ ‘be substantial and bear a legitimate nexus to the finding.’ ” 3

Substantial evidence supported the adverse credibility finding. That Ms. Naray *693 an sent her daughters back to Fiji despite her claim of rape there undermined the credibility of her claim that she had in fact been raped. Ms. Narayan said she sent her daughters back because “they had fallen so sick.” But her descriptions of their “sickness” were vague and inconsistent. She first testified that “they had…

dissenting.

Because the record does not support the reasons offered by the BIA and the IJ for their adverse credibility finding, I respectfully dissent.

The reasons offered by the agency and relied on by the majority to discredit Ms. Narayan do not go to the heart of her asylum claim, and cannot therefore form the basis of a denial based on an adverse credibility determination. Kaur v. Ashcroft, 379 F.3d 876, 888 (9th Cir.2004).

The majority’s entire opinion is based on events that allegedly occurred in California in 2000. Ms. Narayan’s application for asylum, however, is based on allegations of past persecution in Fiji in 1999. Nevertheless, the majority concludes that the events in 2000 “went to the heart of her asylum claim” because any perceived inconsistency regarding Ms. Narayan’s daughters’ symptoms suggests she was lying about being raped. Our case law instructs otherwise. In Kaur , the applicant alleged being imprisoned, beaten and raped in India in 1995. 379 F.3d at 878 . The IJ rejected her claim, finding her not credible in part because the IJ found her testimony regarding a critical event in 1993 to be vague and ambiguous. We *694 rejected the IJ’s conclusion,…