JIAZENG ZHAO V. LORETTA E. LYNCH, No. 13-70795 (9th Cir. 2015)

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FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS NOV 20 2015 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT JIAZENG ZHAO, No. 13-70795 Petitioner, Agency No. A099-725-672 v. MEMORANDUM* LORETTA E. LYNCH, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted November 5, 2015 Pasadena, California Before: GRABER and GOULD, Circuit Judges, and DANIEL,** Senior District Judge. Jiazeng Zhao petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’s order denying him asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture. We deny the petition. * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3. ** The Honorable Wiley Y. Daniel, Senior District Judge for the U.S. District Court for Colorado, sitting by designation. 1. At oral argument, counsel conceded that the petition may be denied as to Zhao’s alleged resistance to China’s one-child policy. 2. While Zhao alleges that the police beat him because of his political opinion regarding the government’s complicity in an unfair eviction scheme, “the record does not compel us to hold that [Zhao] was attacked on account of” a statutorily protected ground. Regalado-Escobar v. Holder, 717 F.3d 724, 730 (9th Cir. 2013). Zhao’s argument is plausible, but it is also plausible that the government punished Zhao for overstaying or squatting in a residence from which he had been evicted after receiving compensation. Our standard of review is stringent, and Zhao is entitled to relief only if the record compels the conclusion that his version of the facts is correct. On this record, we defer to the agency’s decision because the record doesn’t compel us to credit Zhao’s argument. Petition DENIED. 2

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