Jia Wang v. Merrick Garland

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: October 27, 2023
• Docket: 23-1200
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

USCA4 Appeal: 23-1200 Doc: 30 Filed: 10/27/2023 Pg: 1 of 3

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 23-1200

JIA QIANG WANG,

Petitioner,

v.

MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General,

Respondent.

On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Submitted: September 22, 2023 Decided: October 27, 2023

Before QUATTLEBAUM and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges, and KEENAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Petition dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ON BRIEF: Meer M. M. Rahman, New York, New York, for Petitioner. Brian Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, M. Jocelyn Lopez Wright, Senior Litigation Counsel, Jennifer P. Williams, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. USCA4 Appeal: 23-1200 Doc: 30 Filed: 10/27/2023 Pg: 2 of 3

PER CURIAM:

Jia Qiang Wang, a native and citizen of the People’s Republic of China, petitions

for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“Board”) dismissing his

appeal from the immigration judge’s (“IJ”) decision denying his applications for asylum,

withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. We dismiss

the petition for review.

The Board determined that Wang failed to challenge the bases on which the IJ found

Wang not credible or the finding that he did not sufficiently corroborate his claim. In this

proceeding, Wang has simply submitted the brief he filed before the Board. He does not

challenge in any meaningful way the Board’s reasons for dismissing his appeal. “In

general, a party waives an argument by failing to present it in its opening brief. . . . [A]

party also waives an issue by failing to develop its argument—even if its brief takes a

passing shot at the issue.” United States v. Fernandez Sanchez, 46 F.4th 211, 219

(4th Cir. 2022) (cleaned up). The opening brief should contain the petitioner’s

“contentions and the reasons for them, with citations to the authorities and parts of the

record on which the [petitioner] relies.” Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A); Suarez-Valenzuela v.

Holder, 714 F.3d 241, 248 (4th Cir. 2013). “It is a well settled rule that contentions not

raised in the argument section of the opening brief are abandoned.” A Helping

Hand, LLC v. Baltimore Cnty., 515 F.3d 356, 369 (4th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks

omitted).

Wang fails to challenge the Board’s finding that he did not question the IJ’s reasons

for deciding he was not credible and did not sufficiently corroborate his claim. Because

2 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1200 Doc: 30 Filed: 10/27/2023 Pg: 3 of 3

Wang fails to meaningfully challenge the Board’s decision, we dismiss the petition for

review. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are

adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the

decisional process.

PETITION DISMISSED