immigration judge after having the same person be his counsel he was scheduled to appear he did appear in front of judge marched and the issue here is the sort of overlapping issue of due process as it relates to a request for a continuance and the right to counsel there is also established to having to do with case continuation issues for the court itself where by the local immigration judge talked to him a little bit about that he said that he had called a few attorneys but no one had called them to tell him they were interested in a hearing in one month the immigration  him that she didn't think she could find an attorney in a month anyway so she wanted to proceed at that point did he make an expressed request for a continu not in so many words but i think in this case it was clear that the immigration judge should not be allowed to say that his inadequate response indicates a waiver of a right to counsel she did contact with my client and he is quite diligent there's a letter in the file actually to miss alina's telling him when he moved it's quite a articulate letter and detail for someone with a sixth grade education this woman has a history had a history of continuing this case for quite a long time a few times the government actually continued it for a year for fingerprinting but she continued it once because she had a broken arm she continued at another time because she was also a nurse in nevada and had to work conflict and didn't want to come to the regular hearing so she was a lawyer and a nurse mr alvarez was always ready for its hearings even continue this case he was always there and at the time the case with schedule for two thousand and four just moved back to two thousand and three and the judge says that she has to go forward not because he was still a tory but because case completion guidelines that she has to pick pay attention to from washington that actually was brought up in the context of him asking about a piece of evidence that was introduced at that hearing the government the country reports were introduced into the hearing my client said what's that and the judge just racks priced there and instead of answering his question talks about at that point his inability to get a lawyer in a month it's quite interesting because he asked a fairly direct question and she doesn't answer it at all so i i think  honor the lawyer really should prepare the client for hearing and yes they have a mutual obligation to take care of business so that he's prepared the history of this case from ninety five until the hearing in two thousand and three is one of delayed and protests tracked and continuances so when he does come to this hearing and it comes early a month after she withdraws after trying to find counsel i think he has somewhat of an expectation that he ought to be able to have a lawyer at its regular hearing and ask for that instead the judge decides then and there not really necessarily in his interest as is her obligation to protect one of the prostatic case but in her interest to complete the case because she has an obligation to washington so well i agree with you and the judge tells him she doesn't think he's going to be able to do that they don't even have a discussion about it that's her that's her opinion but does he say i've got somebody who's really going to represent me but i need another month or a nice four would submit doesn't even have an opportunity to engage in a discussion because she tells him what is possible and what is not possible and i don't think that's fair and  and he doesn't make a motion to continue to give a maturity like he was just before the case well she might be able to the question might be at that point whether or not she does that properly whether or not there's due process observed in the course of the hearing not going to get one not this is the evidence that the government's introduced let me tell you what that says when he specifically asked and that's a separate issue from a continuance request that's actually   court knows and is held we don't have to say exactly what that evidence might be had he had prior counsel but this truce has been going on for six views it had been and in fact his attorney didn't submit anything new all that time but there's a great deal of stake in an asylum proceeding where someone may be going back to a situation of persecution and because this court has said in more than one case to understand the legal nature of the inquiries about his case puts in him which he clearly did not when we're talking about attorney who could make the legislation because the king just a little bit after that however he does deserve his day in court he deserves the right to present his seventh and fourth recruitment isn't the only issue when we're talking about this family and  today i would i would talk to him about every family member he has i would ask him about other obviously there are other bases to reopen i would explore that now  have instructions to complete that by the end of september and i don't think you're going to get an attorney before that also know that and he also commented that he didn't have any evidence to submit at this time he also noted that he generally didn't keep any any documents from guatemala but alvarez this testimony really focused on filing violence in the abstract and difficult difficult a difficult life in guatemala and i mean i would refer this court's attention to pages fifty three responsive to your honest question unknown and we don't know what he could have gone on because all we have is here is what he did put on and so it's kind of a catch twenty two we don't know whether he has a different he wasn't completely surprised that he might have couldn't have been completely surprised that he it was reasonable that he might have to go for it he was given as counsel has pointed out about a month to prepare for this hearing the record doesn't show the records simply his attorney i mean he had been part of the legal proceeding legal proceedings for a big chunk of time so he must have known that this is his and his attorney's responsibilit  and that may have actually influenced a bit how that felt or or how they decide how they felt the evidence to mitigate that the government referred to on page sixty nine submitted at the august hearing and again i'd just like to repeat that the hearing actually had been moved back the case completion guidelines for september required that the judge move the hearing from february of zero four back to zero three and she put