university of washington immigration law clinic for petitioner i'd like to reserve two minutes for a bottle and i'll keep an eye on the clock i believe the most straightforward issue that's dispositive in this case is the agenc failure to address the probative country conditions expert declaration and opinion so the expert declaration in this case concluded that petitioner was at high risk of being tortured and killed by cartel members the expert also spoke to acquiescence and internal relocation this was argued to the i j a to the board of immigration appeals and in our opening brief before this court it was ignored in all three by the agency and respondent this is clear  this court requires in torture claims that the agency agency consider all evidence of torture call c o l e this court held that it was error to disregard an expert opinion in a convention against torture case this is a wholesale failure as egregious arius addressed construing reversible error by itself i would further note that should responded at this belated point offer some explanation for why the expert opinion should be given less weight that would be asking to uphold the agency on a ground upon which the agency did not rely contrary to s t v generally as well as waived in their response brief so this court can decide this matter solely on that ground the  nd straightforward ground in this case which i think is dispositive is the agency's erroneous decision on acquiescence so this court has repeatedly and clearly stated that when there is a luminous country conditions on state and local corruption indeed in the precise facts of this case that is fear of cartels in mexico then that is sufficient to meet the acquiescence requirement even if there is some evidence of federal efforts because obviously the federal efforts are not successful here the uncontested record shows that there is such widespread state and local corruption i think it's important to note here that responded did not put on a case that is they submitted no evidence to counter petitioners credible testimony credible by the immigration judge the voluminous country conditions evidence put forward and prepared by the washroom to prepare this case numerous witness declarations and to expert declarations that were all admitted into evidence includes us state department reports congressional research service reports in light of this uncontested evidence of widespread corruption petitioner met its burden on acquiescence that was the only ground upon which the motion to reopen was denied and because it's in firm the motion to reopen denial as well isn't firm and the agency should have considered the probative evidence of a new recent threat that he received when he was detained at the northwest detention center now i also want to address the internal relocation issue so there is no waiver of internal relocation in this case the rule is that this court refused to be a decision except to the extent that it expressly adopts the decision it's rather the the board of immigration appeals reviewed the case and when it got to internal relocation it noted the immigration judge found against petitioner based on internal relocation spent eight pages briefing why this was incorrect and then the board of immigration appeals noted but that's just one factor to paraphrase we don't need to reach this court does not affirm an agency on the ground upon which it does not rely the agency did not to be a did not adopt the immigration judges internal relocation decision not before this court to its due to the extent there's any ambiguity about that it's unclear what the be a it decided then that counsels for remained to the board to clarify exactly what its holding was and when it was adopting the i j a decision about upping the reasoning of the ideas decision versus adopting the conclusions that the i g made now i'd like to address it now but i think those issues are dispositive of the case i think it is important to address the future fear decision of the agency and we contend that the agency's future fear of torture decision was not supported by substantial evidence but was based only on inference and we would say speculation so  st of all the immigration judge framed the very question of future fear and correctly asking only whether one particular cartel member the highest member that petitioner as an undisputed informant fingered  opposed to considering the threat of the entire cartel and other cartel members that he had also informed on but putting that aside the essence of the agency's decision was that petitioner didn't have a future fear because the time he was in bureau of prisons custody from two thousand and ten to two thousand and seventeen he did not receive any threats from the cartel so we argue that that's speculation on two points one that petitioner would not be safe in bureau of prisons custody that he would be attacked by cartel members there's no evidence to support that in the record and in fact petitioners presented evidence that the opposite was true that the bureau of prisons actually is pretty effective at protecting people in its custody that was in the motion to reopen nd it speculates that that cartel members simply will forgive and forget transgressions over time now that inference and speculation have to be weighed against the actual evidence that petitioner submitted the expert declaration which was ignored that said he was and in danger the record evidence that cartels despise informants and will attack them and track them down when they return to mexico as well as the credible threats that he reported up until he was put into had people who had been in federal custody for six years eight years and the court not surprisingly concluded that cartels were willing to bide their time and that the record didn't show that the cartel had lost interest simply by the passage of time given that the fear was that the person was going to be tortured on return to mexico not in the u s and of course here we also have the additional threats to petition or the one that he outlined in his motion to  reopen as well as the threat to his cousin francisco who was similarly situated to him that is he was also an informant he'd been done to fight as an informant he was in federal bureau of prisons custody his cousin was then threatened that when he was returned to mexico he was going to be killed and after this cousin went back to mexico was deported to mexico and was living a stable life working a normal job he was in fact disappeared in two thousand and fifteen relatively shortly before petitioner presented his case to the immigration judge now the i j a in this case said well we don't know exactly what happened to this cousin she speculated that it's possible that he could have been a victim of random crime  mexico but i think moderate all in montreal this court really addresses that issue in that it said that the petitioner must be credited in the absence of an explanation that it is at least as plausible and that's on page five  of that case here the i j a made the incorrect factual decision she simply said well it's possible that he could have been a victim of crime to do that she ignored the totality of the circumstances the threats that he had received as well as probably the most dispositive issue that when his family started looking into what happened we have a missing person the police said don't look into this it's dangerous and also refused to look into now the most plausible explanation there is not that when you go to the police the police tell you it's too dangerous to ask about it when you make a missing report persons report so in that sense we think that the future fear determination by the agency is not supported by substantial evidence and finally what i'd like to address is the past torture issue and we do contend that this raises an issue of st impression in the court that is whether the location of past torture has to be in the country from which you're seeking relief under the torture convention so here the judge said that the past torture that that the case was premised entirely on a future fear of torture that he was never tortured in the past now we argued that's clearly incorrect because petitioner was shot in the united states he was threatened by at gunpoint in the united states several times and that rises to the level of torture the immigration judge made the threshold determination that because this happened in the us it can't be passed torture for consideration of whether he'll be tortured in mexico but that's based on an incorrect reading of the regulations and statute and in contrast the asylum regulations and statute is this court noted in gonzalez medina read the plain language of the regulation as it states that passed persecution is only considered to be that which happens in the country from which the person is seeking asylum so for asylum persons purposes past persecution by regulation must occur in the country from which you're seeking protection in contrast the torture convention statute and regulations contain no such geographical limitation this is a plain language issue and courts give meaning to differences in statutory and regulatory language and if anything in this case that it's canon of statutory interpretation to regulatory languages that those differences have meaning i would note that respondent offers no legal argument as to why that statutory regulatory interpretation argument is incorrect and simply not there and we asked this court to give effect to that plain language now there are other errors in the past torture analysis of the immigration judge and the as well st we did argue that there was past torture in mexico he received a death threat in mexico after having been shot in the united states the case most on point as to why that could be past torture is maybe coop and maybe most importantly even if we're not reaching this geographical location of torture the idea that past attacks and torture by cartels in the u s is irrelevant to future fear really turns the analysis on the head on its head the record evidence in this case was that petitioner was more at risk in mexico in the us cartels are constrained in the us by law enforcement in compared to mexico the fact that he was tortured in the us is even more probative of his fear of what's going to happen to him in mexico in this this court is found in other cases that credible testimony alone can meet a petitioners burden on a torture claim it's found the country conditions evidence alone can meet a petitioners burden on a torture claim expert opinions can be dispositive in this case petition presented all of them was found credible voluminous evidence expert declarations all admitted with respondents not putting on a case we asked this court to find the petitioner has met his burden under the convention against torture and counsel i have one question for with regard to his being shot in the country did he go to a hospital or doctor or make a police report judge that was addressed in front of the i j a he was afraid of going to the hospital he was afraid that he would be found by the cartel members so he just treated himself several days later he went to his handler his police officer slash da handler and that relationship pretty much broke down because he was upset that he wasn't being protected we did present an expert forensic medical evaluation confirming that he was shot which was admitted into the record so neither the board nor the i j a questioned his account that he was shot  because there are numerous legal issues here we're not asking for purely a fact a review a fact finding error but legal error as to not considering evidence the court torture convention definition  of the attorney general foundationless opinions that's what this case is really about because the petition doesn't actually discuss is the record evidence instead what we hear is a string of various so called legal claims the pitcher doesn't confront the problem with his own evidence his witnesses suppose things occurred he suspects something occurred the problem is there are so many unknowns in this case the petitioner can't cover up those holes except by saying finder is compelled to fill them for him we don't instruct a jury to say well this witness thinks something occurred jury you are compelled to agree with that witness and jury you're compelled to string together those uncertainties there's a those unknowns in order to find that a litigant bore their burden it's not required under common sense or i think his argument as i understand it i the i failed to grapple with the evidence that was presented and there's ample authority remained in cases when the i j fails to consider and analyze the record so  if i could have you respond specifically to the claim that counsel raised regarding an expert declaration that indicated a high risk of harm by card cartel members as i read the record the i j a really focus very narrowly on chewie fact solely on chewy is there indications in the record showing that the i g appropriately considered the extent of harm but he may face from the cartel in general or other cartel members as well yes your honor in fact would surprise oppositions argument is in fact their entire human is based on quoting the immigration judge on one hundred and seventy seven dollars where the immigration judge talks about tree or is affiliates i mean that's actually the basis of petitions argument that the i j somehow ignored the cartel or his affiliates who are the affiliates or cartel the next page the lack of threats communicated by tweet or any of his associates who are these so shits the cartel members this is just the immigration judge didn't address or understand that this involved a broader thing than just chewy it's ignore the facial reading  but seven years since the last threat and eleven years between the initial flipping on his fellow drug dealers and the time of his immigration judge hearing so we're talking about the length of time here that petition doesn't address return to judge when concern about the failure to consider the difficulty of course as we have on one hand cases same the agencies not required to write next to jesus and there's a reason for it's a seven hundred dollars page record the immigration judge is not required to if you don't consider something well how do we know the immigration judge didn't consider it the immigration judge lists the expert report and really what does the expert report out again the difficulty be arguing cases in a fairly short amount of time with a lot of fact is we need the court to look at the expert report not an argument about what tourney thinks it means what we don't have is testimony about how and uses opinions are based so this so called expert who is merely just an attorney talk to petitioner what information was conveyed we don't know petitioner declined to call the expert witness so what we have is well he talked to the petitioner and that's it well except the problem is is petitioner still suspecting someone do we know who chewy is green no really anything what is the basis of that opinion and even if we're say well the age they completely ignore what's the relevance of it is based on background country conditions we all know what that they are cartels operating mexico and in the united states the immigration judges fact finder looks at the evidence and says well there's evidence of cartel involvement and then there's time gaps and then there's various claims about the cousin brother but no one knows anything at all the witness is just making the inferential leaps that they're entitled to but the fact finder under this court standard view is not compelled to make all the inferences the petitioner desires when petitioner glosses over the holes in their own case does not aid this court because we don't know how those unknowns are compelled to be filled by the inferences and those inferences really do bear repeating in that diego his brother he was shot either in two thousand and six or seven or two thousand and ten we don't know because the mom says one  other why do we think he was shot by the cartel well we assume assume a fact finder is not required to follow an assumption francisco the cousin disappeared in tw fifteen why well apparently the family investigated this and they didn't learn much so we gain we assume a witness is allowed to assume and that is fine a fact finder is not mandated to petitioner talks about the threats his mom faced when we actually looked the mom statement what she says is three americans were standing outside her door and you fled that's it what does that mean we don't know and the fact finder doesn't know and fact finders not compelled to somehow find these three americans were cartel members and anyway so what we're left with is a lack of evidence a lack of knowing who chewy is and all that petitioner doesn't fill those holes and can't and said raises a scattershot of so called legal claims that aren't really legal they're just complaints ultimately with the immigration judge just fact finding and this court's task is not to reweigh that evidence that's for the fact finder to do is the way that evidence and decide what  some courts of appeals have been holding court cases in abeyance but the government is not specifically requesting it that case comes out of the th circuit where they have a somewhat different ruled on this court  ultimately when we look at the entirety of the record the record doesn't compel reversal and petitioners desire to gloss over the holes in this case and all the unknowns don't compel reversal and we ask that the court deny the petition thank you so in this case the immigration judge did incorrectly emphasize chewy and i think when you look at the exact requirements the immigration judge put on petitioner to find that he would show a future fear it was that applicant must demonstrate it's more likely or not that one chewy remains interested in harming applicant stop then it goes on to the nd point that chewy has the means or ability to torture is torture him or is affiliated with pete so the affiliation comes in related to chewy but the st requirement the that the immigration judge incorrectly put on petitioner contrary to his whole cartel targeting argument was that she remained interested i no too that the expert declaration we had him available by telephone to testify ice counsel had asked at the hearing wrapped up earlier and conceded that they would not cross examine him and the immigration judge based on the ice attorney's representation admitted his testimony as if he had testified this is not a case where the b i i said we've considered all evidence we considered the expert declaration and ignore and decided it was not probative is simply no mention of it whatsoever in the b i a decision and the requirement for cat cases for court convention against torture cases is higher than in other forms of relief all evidence by record by regulation of case law must be considered cole is directly on point for this matter thank you thank you