Singh

MEMORANDUM **

Sukhjinder Singh, a citizen of India, petitions for review of the order of the Board of Immigration Appeal (“BIA”) adopting and affirming the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) decision denying his applications for withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“Torture Convention”) as incredible and fabricated. 1 We deny Singh’s petition.

In support of his applications, Singh testified that police inspectors detained him three times — for three days starting February 15, 2000, seven days starting January 26, 2001, and three days starting December 24, 2001 — in retaliation for his support of a pi’o-Sikh opposition party, *480 and that during these detentions the inspectors bound him, beat him, deprived him of food and water, and burned him with acid. According to Singh, he went into hiding after his third detention while he arranged travel to the United States. Singh left India on April 4, 2002 and, after traveling through Jordan, Greece, and France, took a crew berth on a ship sailing from Haiti to the United States. On May 9 or 10, 2002, Singh and three other Indian crewmen deserted from the ship and entered the United States.

On May 20,…

dissenting.

Because, in my opinion, none of the four grounds upon which the IJ relied in making his adverse credibility determination meets even our deferential standard of review for substantial evidence, I dissent. First and foremost, the ground relied upon by the majority cannot be sustained. The IJ did not explain his rejection of Singh’s entirely plausible testimony that an agent acquired his travel documents and that he therefore had no knowledge of their contents. See Garrovillas v. INS, 156 F.3d 1010, 1013 (9th Cir.1998) (holding adverse credibility determination unsupported by substantial evidence where the “BIA did not comment on [alien’s] explanation, nor suggest any reason that it found his explanation not credible”). Moreover, the IJ impermissibly speculated that a fake passport would not contain stamps from prior travels. See, e.g., Ge v. Ashcroft, 367 F.3d 1121, 1125-26 (9th Cir.2004) (reversing adverse credibility determination where IJ’s findings were “based on impermissible speculation”).

Second, the three grounds that the majority declines to address are equally insufficient to support the IJ’s determination. One, Singh testified to the goals of the pro-Sikh…