that afternoon judges i would like to reserve five minutes for rebuttal then and st i would like to acknowledge also the presence of two very important people in this case who are in this courtroom today and that is petitioners sisters  myra and sandra good afternoon judges no one in this courtroom including members of this court numbers of the gallery my colleague from the government if they were standing a petition or shoes would risk going back to guatemala they wouldn't risk it because their fate in guatemala as petitioners faith in guatemala is a near certainty well and  we certainly understand that that is the position of the petitioner from your brief on his behalf could we start with the asylum corney yes and could we start with respect to that claim by hearing your argument as to how mr martinez can overcome the length of time it took well over the one year statutory theory to bring that particular yes your honor happy to address the short answer to the question is that this fear based claim was exacerbated by a particular fact most particular fact and that is the deportation of leonidas d our our cone in the winter actually in october of two thousand and seventeen prior to that time going back to tw just gone and deported he was gone and the boarded based in part on cooperation given to the f b i by petitioner and his sister myra so that and our karns the cooperation of a petitioner became known to the cartel and that's really been in the uncontroverted here all the factual assertions in my in my client's best you're still not answering my question as to as to how this changes the equation in any way how how has it heightened the risk that concerns mr martinez if he were to return while your honor it's a known fact and part of his record that cooperation against the court tell is viewed as i mean not dealing changed circumstances while the circumstance the changes that our con was deported and learned and learned and other members of the cartel learned can find to only the record the final decision of the agency which is the b i a d drop footnote one footnote one says as an alternative the i j a reach two issues the one year write it is true your honor and the fact that was a kind of a murky situation for us with respect to presenting we presented out of abundance of caution and we would still rely on the fact i agree with the court procedurally it's merits so all that before us now are the merits right very well and in on the merits i guess your case really rests on our cone that because of what the chief said about  challenge then was deemed to be credible you know compared it to a situation when you know lee iacocca was not around and they're still selling chryslers and in fact the threats because it was a preexisting threat against the  family intensified so that they don't forgive and forget so but time and so what you're telling me it was a timeless as i understand it is that there was testimony found credible say that's a very important your case we can at least agree that you you need one i need but you're relying heavily on that correlation that your expert cries watermelon gangs punish whole families based on the actions of one family member right now i don't think it paints that were on your own i don't think it pays that good and i wouldn't i would ask the court so he sort of the fact that my client status as a known informant which is a social group that we asked the court but that student that wasn't decided by the expert fully and with respect to the informant or they just a they just adopted so the court is in the in the in the seat of in the view of it that they did not adopt the there is nothing in the i j a opinion that says that perceived informants feels like separation of powers courts filling in for administrative agencies that's not our role i would say to the court that it's impossible to read this record and the decision of the i j a which was very extensive when he addressed job as detailed as this one and yet you raised the due process issue suggesting that he failed to gauge with the record sufficiently here i would term that to be that it's a substantial  substantial evidence challenge withdrawn yes thank you yes i would say it's as danger of evidence challenge because although it's an extensive recitation of the facts and frankly the facts read as if the case is going to go the other one for a tour of petitioner this is one of those situations where the the key fact that he did that the one of the key facts that the i j a relies upon is that my client's activities were not known to the cartel and that's just the disregard and we lay it out in our brief that between a page twenty five dollars to forty dollars and also in the record it with regard to myra's testimony with regard to petitioners from examining this record for a legal issue one i'm suggesting that it that that you might be you know running against the wind on this one because to be ice failure might your to your clients benefit not the other way around the footnote on page one of the board's decision the court makes clear that although the immigration judge made a finding with regard to the one year bar the board went forward and made findings on the merits of the case and did not adopt that finding and page three of the board's decision it's pretty clear that the board is really relying essentially on the nexus findings with regard to past persecution and well founded fear future persecution and although finding that we agree with the immigration judge that there is insufficient evidence in the record to indicate the cartel is aware of the respondents actively as an informant and that so be directly contrary to the record because there was a finding of credibility by the that although there was testimony from the position and they were regarding what our call may know that essentially their their testimony is based on speculation but if it's not based on speculation who speculation it it sounds like what they're saying is it's a very clear chain of events eyewitnesses found to be credible petitioner statemented barber told a friend in guatemala who told our cone that the pearson was the informant that's just was found credible another one petitioner received a death threat from our own through his uncle i j found petitioner credible and that finding was upheld petitioner sr indicates the whole cartel jury could have in any number of ways supported the argument you are now making you i j could have said i find petitioners testimony self serving i find it incredible i think he and his sister are exaggerating who could have just said what you said about imminence could have done any number of things to undermine that testimony but i don't see anything in the record to undermine that what can you point to in the record to undermine we have from the i j a is a broad determination of credibility of the witnesses who testified yes that correct you know and the witnesses testified those who testified before communication that was allegedly gone through the barber that went to a person then went to another person and bottom out was my understanding of the threat and they're at their will never pass through the threat the only the only thing that was supposedly relayed to anyone to alec on was the fact that someone was inquiring about him there was never any threat relayed back from our con and there was no there there was absolutely no testimony given that there was a threat really back so it sounds to me though that if this is  if further evidence is needed to corroborate credible testimony then notice must be given by the i j a of what that corroboration is and so it seems to me that we have testimony that could be credible call by others completely appropriate that would take layers out of the hearsay tighten the nexus and make it better you could have a better decision who knows maybe even the b i would address this  social group this time around in a way that would give you an additional grounds to prevail you are that's a government position that that remain is not wanted in this case th had counsel he had an opportunity to bring this evidence to there there wasn't the type of evidence even presented in front of the immigration judge for the immigration judge to further suggest that it probably these claims because the only thing that was ever there was ever testified to is that perhaps our common learned of this of this fact there is no specific threat that was even heard or testified to by any of the any of the witnesses in the case it's  in layers of hearsay can still defeat a substantial evidence finding right where there's no rule against the mission of hearsay at the ministry level right no there's not but the evidence needs to be compelling and the evidence need to be give such weight to whatever evidence is he chooses to give and the hearsay nature of that testimony may have been appropriate may may appropriately have some impact upon the w weight of the testimony about our cones knowledge of martinez's informant status no i disbelieve or honor it was it was really just  future persecution importantly i think what a court that what the government like the court to focus on is with regard to family member ship it's important to remember that the d the do the petitioners going to lose some but as i as i understand the argument he's got a new problem the new problem is all or come when i met him that would seem to suggest  a decent at least argument that he removed is required for a full hearing to learn about exactly what our local is doing i don't know how active use all we've got is very thin testimony that he has replaced his cousin an over as the head of this cartel and there's plenty of evidence in the record to show that karen ogle is up to some some pretty gruesome stuff we have a murder we have an attempt a double murder we have him being gunned down by who knows a rival cartels or paramilitary who knows right so i mean the record is full of gruesome violence but we don't understand at this point what our cones connection to any of this is do and thirteen so it's been quite some time now that the family's been living there without any threats or any problems it's not as if they're actively getting pursued or that that there's any any indication that there's any kind of active pursuit against these suppose social group which isn't really for us to decide right now apparently so taking that as a given it seems that there's a threat against a member of a card nice ball social group that his family members would not be a member of so disapproving threats against them just proves nothing yeah i understand that they're still practiced on the informant element however again required and they were supposed to be put on notice that look you better bring some documents or something to show that our cone is active as a cartel leader in the area well i mean they were they were again said argued earlier because there wasn't anything specific or concrete offered up during that testimony with regard to any actual threats coming from guatemala substantial evidence supports the agency's finding here th simply not specific concrete highly eminent types of threats that are telling of finding where in the opinion full paragraph beginning with the word further further while both respond to the mayor indicated that respondent cooperated with the f b i and ice and is now known by cartel members to the uniform and the record fails to contain any objective evidence that the cartel members understand respond to have been informant and now seek revenge on this account responded testimony in this regard was only that he believes our com is aware because the barber in a few months community told a friend respondent was seeking information about him and the friend relayed this hour on the court also knows that there is little in the record to even corroborate the extent to have response cooperation with the f b i without further evidence substantiate responds claim that he has an objective we reasonable fear a court cannot find that was on his met the burden of demonstrating th persecution there's a problem with corroboration is it isn't the answer to do the abdo i process and say hey you know i see your evidence i find you credible i might not find every dick we aren't in the hearsay chain credible you're credible but not everyone is therefore i notify you would do that and give a hearing given up to print present corroborating evidence as opposed to just shutting the door and saying nothing does not present compel that i mean it's not your points of course the threats are hearsay how else would how else could they be communicated my client is in jail and is he's hearing about threats that are made through sometimes another detainees he's hearing about present may through big sense of family network it's hearing about threats but also hasn't actually received any according to this record has he well he's received secondhand threats because number one hand the threat has to be communicated directly to the person fret and iran is going to hear bad that's true as a matter of criminal law but as a matter of asylum law it's my client's reasonable perception of the threat as a person informant and the retribution and that would jeopardize it a threat well that's my point i'm not arguing criminal law i'm i'm suggesting to you it may not be a threat if it has not been directed were if what the record shows is something that has not been directed to mr martinez himself it's been communicated to his sister that they're waiting for him in guatemala i don't know that  details a number of instances where consistent with the fact that there's this guatemalan community in horsham and that they have interconnected communication through facebook and whatever it's known that the experts testimony that they monitor detainees in jail and wait for them to come back and i don't like to point out that the judge flips this point of safe we were ok sion the family is not living open in notoriously in guatemala city my client's testimony and myra's testimony is that they move continually and they're basically prisoners in their own home that's hardly safe relocation and as you mentioned to the extent that the reasonably founded fear is based on his perceived informants that is they are not perceived informants i'd also like to say that although the social group is not in front of the court if it if it war and he had to prove a one in ten chance of  of having a well paid a reasonable fear one in ten chance of harm then the fact that other family members who live six hours away in a city and who are hiding have not been harm would not defeat that reason we base fear if it's a one in ten chance we'd expect that there be a certain amount of people that would not be harmed but he's not but they're not even members of act group and they're in hiding and that to the extent of the cooperation let's not let's not ignore exactly what happened here if you look in our opening brief and footnote one of our opening group of page twenty seven dollars mr sacks you would concede would you not that there's a profound difference between cooperation with law enforcement for example that old leads to old mutely leads to testimony court against someone as opposed to an informant who simply provides what becomes derivative evidence that is useful  it was not testimony that was needed in this case our conan that up pleading guilty ask that i'd agree with the court i'd also agree with the court that an f b i agent he doesn't send me is much more likely that if a witness testifies openly people are going to know about it right absolutely as far as opposed to having a contradiction discussion with an investigator from a law enforcement entities and where information is provided in that information may or may not be use in force but if the it was obviously useful to law enforcement because we have an f b i agent sending money to sondra morin tina's and walk through her sister myra in guatemala and giving santa and giving songun guatemala his cell phone number so that when of my rogue the sister and petitioner and st it was myra who through the restaurant where she was working met the law enforcement people in there for a while my was being was passing along information she gained from her brother and the f b i said we want to meet the brother and then they continued meeting with the brother directly and you cannot infer anything but the fact that when an f b i agent then helps sondra to it to escape from the sociopath gether nova and then when sondra is is nabbed at the border makes a phone call to border authorities and then sonder is is then released i don't think there's any other inference to make that that is a recognition of the cooperation that was