Weiwei Chen v. Holder
| Decision Date | 23 December 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. 13-1863,13-1863 |
| Parties | WEIWEI CHEN, Petitioner, v. ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., Attorney General of the United States, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals.
A088 487 537
Weiwei Chen, a 23-year-old native of China living in the United States without permission, left her home country after police detained her, beat her, and attempted to assault her sexually because of her church activities. She fears that, if returned there, Chinese authorities will persecute her based on her practice of Christianity. Finding her account credible, an immigration judge nonetheless denied her relief from removal. The IJ and the Board of Immigration Appeals concluded that the attempted sexual attack and related events were not past persecution and that her fear of future persecution wasnot well-founded. When combined with the other aspects of her detention, the attempted sexual assault can constitute past persecution. Therefore we grant Chen's petition for review of the agency's decision.
The IJ found Chen "fully credible," so we recount Chen's statements. Chen was born and raised in Shenyang, a city in the province of Liaoning. When she was in junior high school, a former schoolmate introduced her to Christianity. She soon began attending family-church activities and was baptized. She continued to attend weekly church services until December 2006 when police discovered her, along with a number of other people, at a Bible study class held in someone's house. She was 16 years old at the time. They accused her and the others in attendance of colluding with foreigners, and they detained the worshipers at a nearby police station.
Chen was interrogated, beaten, and traumatized over the next five days at the station. When she arrived at the station she was tied down, and two officers interrogated her for half an hour. During her first session of questioning, they threatened to send her to a labor camp and accused her church of associating with foreign "reactionary religious influence[s]" and plotting to overthrow the Chinese government. When she refused to reveal information about her church or confess to a crime, the interrogators pinched her, slapped her face, kicked her with their heavy boots, and punched her until she fell to the floor. She received "a lot of contusions" and was "black and blue."
The police beat and interrogated Chen three more times before releasing her from custody. During one of these sessions, an officer attempted to sexually assault her. Chen explains that the officer The officer backed off and sent her to her cell.
After Chen's five-day detention, the police discharged her. To secure her release her parents paid a 2,000-yuan bond, and she signed a statement prepared by the police promising not to participate in illegal religious gatherings or contact other churchgoers. As required by the police, she reported to them weekly. She returned to school, but the past abuse, her suspended worship, and weekly visits to the police left her depressed and unable to focus on her studies.
Chen's parents arranged a United States student visa for her, and she arrived in this country in February 2007, less than two months after her release from police custody. Because she was depressed and afraid of further government mistreatment, she explained, she left China immediately rather than wait until she could afford tuition to attend school in the United States. Chen has resumed her church activities, attending services at a number of churches in Chicago's Chinatown neighborhood.
Meanwhile, the police are searching for Chen in China. When she first failed to report to the police, they visited her parents and questioned them about her whereabouts. Her parents explained that she left home, and the police ordered them to report when she returns or face prosecution for harboring a fugitive. The police regularly check her parents' home to see if she has returned.
Chen filed for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture based on religious and political persecution. (Although Chen submitted her affirmative application for asylum after the one-year filing deadline, the IJ waived the deadline, finding it reasonable under the circumstances that she filed three months after her eighteenth birthday.) In her application, Chen explains her fear that if she returns to China the police will arrest her, detain her again, and severely punish her. She also fears that the police will place her under surveillance, preventing her from practicing her religion.
After the government initiated removal proceedings for overstaying her visa, the parties submitted additional materials bearing on Chen's application. She furnished a letter from her pastor in China, verifying that she was baptized and had participated in church activities. The government submitted the State Department's International Religious Freedom Report from 2010, which details how China recognizes—but limits—religious freedom. House churches, such as the one Chen attended, may not hold open services unless they affiliate with a patriotic-religious association sanctioned by the government. Authorities in some parts of China have imprisoned worshipers for unauthorized assemblies and expressions of religious beliefs.
The IJ denied Chen asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT relief. Despite crediting her testimony that the beatings left her with "a lot of contusions" and that she was sexually threatened, the IJ found that this treatment did not seriously bruise or harm her. Therefore, the IJ concluded, she suffered no past persecution. He also found that Chen failed to establish a well-founded fear of future persecution, pointing out thatthe letter from her pastor in China did not say whether the pastor fears for his own safety, even though Chinese authorities tend to target the religious leaders.
The Board dismissed Chen's appeal of the IJ's denial of her request for asylum and withholding of removal. It ruled that her detention was too short and her mistreatment too minor to qualify as persecution, and that her fear of future persecution was not objectively reasonable. In disapproving of but nonetheless discounting the attempted sexual assault, the Board reasoned: The Board also ruled that, although age is relevant in assessing persecution and the IJ did not discuss Chen's age in his analysis, the IJ was aware of her young age when he considered whether she had been persecuted.
On appeal Chen objects to the dismissal of her petition, asserting that since persecution may be psychological and need not involve repeated or severe physical abuse, the agency erred in concluding that she had not been persecuted and that her fear of future persecution was unreasonable. Though she maintains that she would qualify for relief even if she had been an adult when abused, she also argues that the agency erred by giving too little consideration to the attempted sexual assault and her young age.
Since the Board adopted and supplemented the IJ's decision, we review both opinions. See Sirbu v. Holder, 718 F.3d 655, 658 (7th Cir. 2013); Abraham v. Holder, 647 F.3d 626, 632 (7th Cir. 2011). To withstand review, the agency's decision must be supported by substantial evidence. See Sirbu, 718 F.3d at 659; Reyes-Sanchez v. Holder, 646 F.3d 493, 496 (7th Cir. 2011). But we review de novo the agency's legal...
To continue reading
Request your trial