morning your honor dillon my name is nina raban and i'm appearing on behalf of petitioners barra and her three minor children i'd like to reserve two of my ten minutes for rebuttal please know that the time showing  total time remaining ok thank you your honour's this case is not about two competing understanding's of the same set of facts rather it's about a decision by the board of immigration appeals that holy fails to engage with or even discuss key probative evidence in the record in coming to its conclusions so i'd argue that you're only required to delve into the large and complex evidentiary record to the extent it demonstrates that the board decision fails to accurately describe let alone contend with very powerful and disturbing key facts in the record in the recent decision issued by this court in karada v sessions the court stated that the standard of review of board of immigration appeal factual determinations is deferential but deference does not mean blindness and here i would say that it takes a form of blindness or perhaps more specifically severe myopia to come to the conclusions the board did based on this evidence tree record well counsel why wasn't it fair for the board to conclude that this was a family feud and supposed to typical persecution that we see in  well in fact your honor i think that the problem is the court that the board refused to acknowledge it was a family feud because if it was a family feud then this is clearly persecution on the basis of family member ship i think that there is no question that the events that the incidents that befell mr forrest family members particularly the torture of her brother rises to the level of persecution but the board discounted that and found the she hadn't suffered past persecution because it said that family wasn't one of the motives of her purse of his persecutor it's bit were for personal reasons for instance if the father thought that the bride was too young to be with the claimants brother would that be a ground persecution you're right so as long as family is one central reason it  combined with other reasons but it would be the other reasons in this case in this case i think that the initial encounter with the first brother probably was some kind of a family feud where the two kind of a  romeo juliet and juliet situation but then there was a drug cartel that became involved and it became about you know who knows why they were coming after this family but clearly they were coming after the family and i think you just before we get to the involvement of what you characterize as the drug cartel if it were a romeo and juliet situation with that the grounds for asylum well only if you could show that the mexican government was either involved or unable or unwilling to protect i think that with the if you can true in this case absolutely and i think the myopia i was talking about in the romeo juliet situation if well yes i think that if the family is a central motive then under this case discs analysis of family based persecution claims like in parata most recently or rios the lynch as long as you know in romeo and juliet that's actually a quintessential example of where family really was motivating them i think the complication is showing why the mexican government would care about some family feud and not intervene but here they don't intervene because of  was some mexican government involved yes what is the evidence of that i couldn't find it in myself of maybe you can help me yes that's actually one of the i think largest flaws in the board's reasoning is that they just fail to even mention the extensive evidence in the record of police involvement in three different ways first there was philippe's repeated statements to his mother and my client misty bara that police were among his abductors and torturers then you have her brother a friend submitted a declaration and she testified credibly about the fact that he and some of his other brothers were shot at by men in police vans and you have her brother in law who went back to mexico and was attacked by men looking for the family among whom was someone he recognized to be a police officer so there were three different that individual in uniform no you i think the issue though is whether the board even discusses these facts that's that's where i think this case this court's case law in colby holder i discussed this on page thirty eight of my brief that if there is highly probative or potentially just positive evidence the board has to discuss it and here they just whiz past the evidence of police involvement in this because it turns out that the government prosecut florus right that is the one thing they say is that well because the police prosecuted on day one of a sequence of events that went on i have a timeline on pages sixty four to sixty five of the record that show that was day one of a sequence of events of repeated attacks on the faults on the family that went on for over three months in rapid succession and we have expert testimony describing why it wasn't inconsistent for the police to intervene day when it was just a family dispute but it was after that when philippe was abducted and tortured when the drug cartels are involved that the police were not only not willing to intervene but were involved and there is case law that says that the police might provide some sort of limited assistance or prosecution but still be involved in persecution and i discussed in the brief that pages thirty eight and thirty nine and actually found an additional ninth circuit case to show farah from two thousand to twenty eight after ten seventy that also the police were actually the perpetrator was a police officer who was subsequently prosecuted and jailed but the court found that that was state proper secu sion i'd like to reserve the last three minutes for it please the court i'm scott stewart on behalf of the acting attorney general in this case the board of immigration appeals uphill the denial of pitch petitioners asylum application the board's decision was reasonable and well supported by the record the record does not compel contrary findings the petition for review should be denied i think at the outset what i'd emphasize your honour's is that this is one of those classic cases where even where there are evidence in the record supporting  petitioners version of events there's plenty of evidence to the contrary and plenty of evidence to support the agency's contrary conclusions on each step of the analysis here starting with past persecution the record just does not compel a finding of past persecution in this case the petitioner herself presented only two items where she herself was potentially directly or somewhat personally targeted the armed men that appeared at the funeral again as we have explained did not did not see in the four men who came to her sister's sister in law's house looking for looking for her who by her own words did not directly threaten her though she did feel threatened by them arriving she didn't know the identities and we don't really have any evidence compelling why they were looking for her what they were hoping to find petitioner herself does seem to concede that those direct those direct effort by alone by themselves are insufficient and therefore moves to the events related to her family similarly insufficient lie because their unfulfilled threats your honor so they feel they fall within the teaching of this court's decisions and limb her brother had been killed her brother had been killed your honor  again then there was a shooting at the funeral in somebody came to her and said well it's a came to our home and one looking for and said they would they would look for until she was under the rocks whatever that doesn't sound very good we didn't get much elucidation on what that meant you're on i think what this what this is a case of is there is a suggestion that there is violence of various sorts in mexico some drug cartel related some kind of general and indiscriminate the record just didn't reason why why what is the theory that she didn't reasonably fear persecution on the basis of the theory is that her although she genuinely believe what she was testifying to the evidence just didn't quite get there she certainly believed that she was threatened that these risks would happen but the immigration judge at one point during the proceedings made the observation look this is all really speculative it involves these inferences and assumptions that the police didn't do this or these folks were here for this motive and the agency just didn't see this is crossing the threshold to satisfy her burden i think that's what's really going on  like some of this this court's decision in what is a good example in that case the court acknowledged in a in opinion believed by judge bars and said look when you have harm toward somebody is close associates or family members that can help you make your showing but you need to have a still good strong tight connection come to her house and say they're going to look for it until she's under the rocks and they they've already killed the brother and made threats is you know particularly given the claim here is supposedly one of you made to be one of the family related violence but there's also evidence that supports the idea that philippe was targeted because he refused to join a drug cartel other evidence suggests that when people were looking for members of the family they were really looking for the male members they were you know showed up with at petitioner sister's house and beat ro pure pure randomness i would say that as as this court identified in with kaare and in some other cases the events were just not shown to be connected enough to be able to be properly considered as amounting to i believe the murder was in in may and i want to say them looking for was a few months after that but i apologize i don't know that answer your honor whatever i'd say your honors at this back and forth i does thin help illustrate the point that the agency contended very carefully with with the dueling issues here in the in her the evidence it's as your honor knows it's a very large large record and said look we just don't think we just don't think that  makes it we understand that she reasonably believes this but it just doesn't quite get to that level of persecution and given a lot it was just a gap of proof is as as we've noted the form and we there wasn't much in the of the identities of the of the people who were claimed to be the persecutors and just not much detail not much direct experience with the petitioner herself so it just doesn't get to that area where the record would com contrary finding your honor i'd say that goes equally well for the or maybe equally well if not more so for the future persecution finding this was another area where the agency was well within its discretion to well within the bounds of hiding that is a contention but not one that this record compels and not one that the agency found persuasive i think that's that's well supported and then it is an alternative ground idea what they are finding that they lived openly in the same place live i think it's somewhat different areas your honor but again this was this was one of those those situations where it was a little bit scanty and and look you know they saw a van here or a car there or you know somebody lives somewhat in the hills we also know from the record that the family did although they they did live you know with neighbors they were somewhat self contained for much of petitioner's life so we just again don't have that  compelled conclusion of a state of hiding or that sort of thing in the agency was was well within bounds in concluding that council would you respond to opposing counsel's view on the participation of the mexican government yes your  honor this is another area where there's just a gap in proof i mean a lot is a lot of said about what philippe said but many of these things were in direct reports and what we do know  e the following things is that sabina who committed you know who of course committed the murder was arrested convicted and sentenced he was of course the lead the patriarch of the family that forms the main basis for the main claim in this clase we know that the police did take actions they took reports they asked for follow up evidence that sort of thing what about the shooting from the police van that she refers to i think what the agency reasonably saw in that judge's galen was that what the record suggested is that the witnesses to these to these events said you know we thought they were police fans but it's just not compelled that we know that that police were definitely persecuting and we what we do now is i guess the evidence of direct police involvement is certainly not compelled given the kind of lack of waiting s showing direct participation and i'd add that they are you not saying that the police are not the g y or i'm sorry and i'm saying that there isn't really we don't have strong enough evidence in this case that would compel the conclusion that the police were directly involved i think the bulk of the claim is more of a or at least a big part of the claims that the government is unwilling or unable to control but i just the record here certainly does not compel that conclusion either the police did what they could they asked for follow up information they asked for additional mothers phone she didn't give it they asked her to wait so that they could come talk to them they ask for a picture that was not able to be supplied when they went in reported philippe there's a complaint the record that the police didn't follow up but philippe was soon found and it was within that area for i believe the seventy two hour missing persons mark hit so the police took reports the family didn't didn't follow up is the police said said was needed and we just don't have one of those situations your honor where the record compels the conclusion that the police were just going through the motions or didn't care th your honors i want to respond first to the discussion of the events in the funeral and just point out that the reasoning regarding past persecution would necessarily require that these were completely disconnected events so that not just that these potential other motives for philippe's abduction and murder were additional motives but that they were alternative motives that family was not at all part of the nexus because that's the only way that you can discount harm to family members from the cumulative analysis the cases in parata or babble of the ashcroft say that as long as there is a connection where the threats that misty fara fears are made more serious by what happened to a family member then clearly they should be part of the cumulative analysis of her past persecution so it would require that it was completely random these various incidents for example men approaching her at the funeral was disconnected from the abduction and torture of her brother and the timeline as  schroeder was asking about the sequence of events if you look at the timeline on pages six eighty five forty sixty five of the record it begins on may third and it's a rapid fire sequence of events three days later her second brother abducted he's found he dies may twelfth and you see just this litany of threatening phone calls direct threats in person people coming to her door all repeating lee saying they're going after lost her family so i think that the connection between the events is clear the council what's your response to opposing counsel slopped that there were no acts of persecution directed towards her well i think that you can only discount the horrific death of her second brother of torture i agree that if you were only looking at what she experienced that would not meet this court's definition of past persecution because threats need to be accompanied by something to make them really serious but here the threats to her were absolutely serious because she had just lost two brothers to the same people that were coming after her and threatening her so i think that that's where the connection to between the events is so important the police involvement i just want to say that you don't even get to the question of how whether reports were taken and whether that was sufficient if you find involvement that's in borsa dano and bob levy ashcroft that if there's if the state was the agent then you don't get to the unable unwilling us prong that's not necessary once you have actual active state involvement and i also just wanted to mention about the family members living in mexico that one of the biggest areas where the court just the board just failed to deal with the evidence is responding to the fact that she had a sister who went back this is a rare asylum case where you actually don't have to hypothesize about what's going to happen if she goes back because her sister did go back and was again found not in the same place that her mother is living by the same people looking for her family and subjected to an assault so i thank you and see that your time ok thank you both counsel the case just argued is submitted for decision by the court the