i'd like to reserve two minutes for rebuttal place thank you good morning and may please the court alexander jacobs force us i'd like to begin today by discussing some key elements of documentary evidence in this case  the reason i'd like to begin there is because only by discounting this documentary evidence is a finding that the petitioner did not experience harm rising to the level of past persecution possible the immigration judge's decision and he has decisions to take a little weight to the documentary evidence the affidavits of petitioners parents and the medical and psychological evaluation reports however neither just decision addresses the documents contents at all or their relevance to the petitioners ability to meet his burden of proof but only why they were discredited and discrediting the contents of the medical and psyche of als are particularly significant because they clearly demonstrate the continued physical and psychological harm  which demonstrates that harm rose to the level of past persecution so in the case of the affidavits by petitioners parents it was legally erroneous to discredit these documents because neither opinion  similar wording and style of the documents should affect the way it afforded to them the wording wasn't all that similar and you know i didn't find it to be it was more the style of writing there prepared by the same indian to john obviously when they weren't by the same person ok sure i think your honor additionally lack of detail in supporting documents is no basis for discounting their contents if the immigration judge found that these documents did not provide lee come down to whether or not he can safely relocate in india your honor i think that is an issue that could that isn't it should be happy to discuss i think that there's plenty of evidence in the record including substantial country conditions submitted by a ph d expert that did a very specific analysis of petitioners risk of relocation that does support that he would have a well funded explain that to me i don't understand if the congress party is no longer in power i understand there's a history that goes back a long time ago where i understand that but we're talking about today in the two thousand and eighteen soon to be two thousand and nineteen i would like to really get a competent level that he positions for a long time that many high ranking officials retain depardieu you throughout the entire you country yes your honor well the something to understand i thought that the problem here was that he was found not to have had that exactly that's our position the only way that we believe that one could find that he did not suffer past persecution is by just counting the ample medical and psychological reports if i correct in understanding and they're still living peacefully in the law yes your petitioner testified credibly and his father's affidavit also matches this issue that when the petitioner first intervened on behalf of his father at the attack in i believe it was  january of two thousand and twenty levon at that point the congress party members declared that they were making it anything that the father had demo be taken out on the son and so petitioner and his father both claim that it seemed from that in the continued country conditions expert and the petitioner and father also allege that it's very common practice for a congress party to do something like that such as charging a member of a family of someone who has gotten old and not even in power it anymore yes your honor and her stand and said as i stated i believe that the country conditions evidence we submitted and the detail and individualized analysis of his well founded fear support our position but if the court does agree with me that he did experience past persecution then i believe that would no longer be our burden to prove and we would we wouldn't right now i mean you have to go back and they have to burn the house and one and the case but yes so based on the medical and psychological evaluation reports as i said i'm not sure if i started saying this yet discrediting them would be legal or was legally erroneous because both immigration judge and the  assertions that they provided inadequate foundation for their conclusions the basis for the conclusions are clearly set forth on the face of the documents the medical report indicates that he conducted a physical examination and interview during which he determined that he continues to suffer pain consistent with the beatings that he described he also mentions psychological abuse symptoms and then the psych the psychologist report of the psychological report indicates what practice he did to come to a diagnosis he came he began with an impersonal evaluation determine if you suffers any recognize conditions details his past trauma and then the diagnosis he reaches the the method that he describes for reaching this diagnosis is consistent with what the d s m five would testify that he fully recovered because from the injuries i believe what the testimony states is that he was able to recover within two to three weeks enough to return to work i do not believe that there's anywhere in the record the reflects that he was fully recovered on your head it took me about court john hope for the attorney general it's always a privilege page one twenty five the record specifically states the testimony of petitioner the fully recovered i already said that and i will go ahead one twenty five of the record yes some substantial evidence to support the agency's a decision  denying petitioners application for asylum withholding removal the cat and also giving little little evidence to documentary evidence when the agency specifically identified deficiencies in those documents but what about the parents  quite different and and besides which if you look in any federal district court record you're going to see a whole lot of decorations at a pretty similar because they're usually drafted about we would respectfully invite the court to compare paragraphs twelve through sixteen and twenty through twenty one of the fathers affidavit on page two thirty seven through two forty two and paragraphs eleven through fifteen and so to say that they're not substantially similar is the first of all they're there are similar and hearten just similar in other parts and second of all is that a standard i mean and given the fact that we know that these people don't speak english and did not themselves write this language here why does that say anything about whether what's in it that they subscribe to that is is believable or not but before the factfinder we have affidavits sometimes at a trial we have testimony of a judge just pasted is faced with testimony of witnesses that is verbatim we would respectfully submit that that invites special scrutiny and that's what the immigration judge was that the c p the congress party would be interested in petitioner as he had been out of the country for two years they didn't explain why the family had remained in england in harm and they didn't stay quiet petitioner alone would be the subject of instead going to go after the son they didn't address the to the mother or the daughter and we would submit that the the fact finder the immigration judge was entitle to consider all the testimony and he considered those deficiencies what's quite critical of this is the immigration judge with regard to the affidavits considered the affidavit and he considered it as evidence visionary admits on page four of a reply brief that the evidence was admitted this is not a case where the judge excluded evidence in this catholic completely he just gave a less wait that's right on the mark there this is not a case of no wait and petitioner overstates the case before this court asking this court to reweigh the evidence which this court never does it looks at for substantial evidence when evidence is considered and that's really the lynch and with respect to the documentary never is understand how what weight to give i mean this essential and that the parents each tell us very specific stories which indicate that the testimony that the individual testified to wasn't true and it was a consistent with the affidavit and many details the judge said that there was it was not helpful to petitioner to carry his burden to establish by preponderance of the evidence  entitlement to asylum withholding removal or protection under cat this court faces all the time fact finders that present their findings of fact to the court and the fact finder says that the evidence is not helpful not specific findings of no persecution and i'd like to address that but i want to go beyond that let's go beyond any with you we find that pass persecution has been established just hypothetically what would be a position then inquiry petitioner argued absolutely no facts regarding the incidents that occurred in terms of evaluating past persecution list look at first of all action and then impact and then words what were the actions in january two thousand and eleven petitioner was attacked when he came to the aid of his father he was kicked in the stomach knocked to the ground that with the actions in january two thousand and eleven in december of two thousand and twelve he was hit by a baton or with sticks what was the impact with regard to the december two thousand and twelve he never testified anything at all about it any impact on him at all with regard to the january two thousand and eleven incident again page one twenty five the record and that's really the most important factual cite in this record regarding the past persecution he states that he was fully recovered so if we look at the words in the actions in the impact we see this is not a case of past persecution so if we look at the words if we look at the actions now we go to the words the words petition or stated a page one twenty two  twenty six in two forty the father admits that the father's testimony is that the threats were made to him regarding his son so if we look at the threats what's critical is that the agency determined they were indirect they weren't significant they didn't result in any case is the substantial evidence test and substantial evidence supports that a finding of fact by the immigration judge in the agency of no past persecution with no past persecution there's no presumption of future  entire paragraph but sinton says in those paragraphs are verbatim i think scuse me thank you with regard to the other documentary evidence i'll go there quickly and again the court's faced with two issues one in terms of the report it's really a curious document the immigration judge said it was one of the oddest documents he'd ever seen facially on the document it appears to be a repetition of the asylum claim it doesn't establish any medical test were run and most importantly is inconsistent with petitioners testimony again petitioner stated that he had fully recovered in the board said that the but the board's reason because there was no pain the document was inconsistent with  pain or anything of that i was at was there any examination at the hearing about what was in the affidavit what was in the medical affidavit were they there was plenty of questioning about his pain and his injury as a matter of fact that's the point that the agency focused on he never stated that he faced a permanent injury i asked him whether he was still in pain and asked him that now that in they ask him whether he had an injury and basically the question is if there is no injury then that's evidence that there is no pain as somebody we just have still had an injury that's correct and he page one twenty five is the critical testimony that he had no injury in summary the evidence was properly considered there's no issue  much in the discussion of past persecution we were just having fixating on whether or not there was a lasting injury seems to me fairly inconsistent with what is required to show past persecution the fact that there are whether or not there is a lasting and that's my understanding as well are you still have an injury or i think like that no i don't believe that he was asked either undirected or on cross examination about the nature of his injuries and at any rate whether or not he was severely harmed at this time significant death threats against him i'm sorry o as to his the state of his physical pain he should have been provided a reasonable opportunity to explain if that was one of the bases on which this trial was focused and i was to identify the deficiencies in the record in the in the documentary evidence both decisions merely identify their deficiencies and give no weight at all to any of their contents if the immigration judge found their lack of detail to be a cause for deficiency he also should have been provided an opportunity to obtain more detailed documents  attacks on his father on their neighborhood the vandalizing of the house also the two that is a bit of a stretch and he was not if it was directly related if the harm to family was directly related to the neighborhood there is first initial attack physical attack on the petitioner where he intervenes in his father's defense there's the ongoing stones being thrown out the house and what about threats  h threats so at the time of the first physical attack those who were attacking his father said that they were not going to take things out on the son and then again in august of tw the congress party supporters explicitly told petitioners father that they were going to kill his son and then again in december of two thousand and twelve the congress party supporters armed with a knife actively in concrete lee attempted to carry out that threat they attacked the petitioner and told him there was no way they were going to leave him alive so that was in fact a direct threat made to him and not to the father and the fact that he was able to escape with his life and flee does not undermine that they tried very hard to do so