Roxana Henriquez-Monge v. William Barr ( 2020 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 14 2020
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
ROXANA HENRIQUEZ-MONGE, No. 14-72303
Petitioner, Agency No. A201-109-659
v.
MEMORANDUM*
WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General,
Respondent.
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Submitted May 12, 2020**
San Francisco, California
Before: WALLACE and R. NELSON, Circuit Judges, and GWIN,*** District
Judge.
Roxana Henriquez-Monge, a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions us to
review the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Board) affirming the
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
***
The Honorable James S. Gwin, United States District Judge for the
Northern District of Ohio, sitting by designation.
Immigration Judge’s (IJ) denial of her application for asylum and withholding from
removal. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. section 1252(a)(1). We deny the
petition.
Henriquez-Monge failed to challenge in her opening brief the Board’s
conclusion that the government of El Salvador was neither unable or unwilling to
control her ex-boyfriend nor that the government would be unable or unwilling to
protect her from him in the future. See Nahrvani v. Gonzales, 399 F.3d 1148, 1154
(9th Cir. 2005) (requiring petitioner to “substantiate” his fear of future persecution
by demonstrating the “government’s inability or unwillingness to control the
asserted persecution from which he suffered”); Gormley v. Ashcroft, 364 F.3d 1172,
1177 (9th Cir. 2004) (requiring petitioner to prove that the alleged past persecution
“was committed either by the government or by forces that the government was
unable or unwilling to control”). Accordingly, Henriquez-Monge waived her
challenge to an independent basis supporting the Board’s denial of her claim for
asylum. See Martinez-Serrano v. I.N.S., 94 F.3d 1256, 1259 (9th Cir. 1996) (stating
that an argument “not discussed in the body of the opening brief is deemed waived”).
In any event, substantial evidence supports the IJ’s adverse credibility finding.
In finding Henriquez-Monge not credible, the IJ offered “specific cogent” reasons
and based the finding on the “totality of circumstances.” Garcia v. Holder, 749 F.3d
785, 789 (9th Cir. 2014). For example, on direct examination at her hearing before
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the IJ, Henriquez-Monge testified that she “never called the police again” after
giving an initial statement to the police about the December 25, 2010 altercation
with her ex-boyfriend. However, in the addendum to her asylum application,
Henriquez-Monge declared that she “did go talk to the police again” after giving her
initial statement to the police. On cross-examination, after initially denying that she
ever stated that she “had gone to make another statement” or that she had attempted
“to go talk to the police again,” she conceded that the statement in her asylum
application was incorrect. Whether Henriquez-Monge attempted to report the
altercation to the police again is a material inconsistency because it “concerns events
central to petitioner’s version of why [s]he was persecuted and fled.” Singh v.
Gonzales, 439 F.3d 1100, 1108 (9th Cir. 2006), overruled on other grounds by
Maldonado v. Lynch, 786 F.3d 1155 (9th Cir. 2015).
Henriquez-Monge failed to offer a “reasonable and plausible explanation” for
the inconsistency. Rizk v. Holder, 629 F.3d 1083, 1088 (9th Cir. 2011). Her
explanation that she was referring to her statement to the police officer that a formal
report was unnecessary in light of her physical marks does not justify the discrepancy
in her asylum application in which she stated that she “did go talk to the police
again.” Because Henriquez-Monge was not credible, she was not eligible for
asylum. See Farah v. Ashcroft, 348 F.3d 1153, 1156 (9th Cir. 2003).
Because Henriquez-Monge was not eligible for asylum for these two
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independent reasons, she necessarily failed to meet the more stringent standard for
withholding of removal. See Pedro-Mateo v. I.N.S., 224 F.3d 1147, 1150 (9th Cir.
2000).
PETITION DENIED.
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