has a target on her back not only has she endured a lifetime of physical abuse sexual assault and anti gay discrimination but she's also the target of a credible death threat by one of mexico's most prominent transnational drug cartels during her last visit to mexico a leader of the cartel was waiting for her at the border that seemed a mexican police washington laughed as that leader of the cartel assaulted her when you did gun to her head and told her that she would be killed if she ever left the abusive relationship she was entrapped in nine years later when she gained the courage to leave her abuser and land him in jail two individuals arrive to her home in the united states assaulted her and threatened her gunpoint that she would be murder if she ever returned to mexico get these facts show that mr she why ms is more likely than not to torture if returned to mexico against her will and the documentary evidence in this case further bolsters that point currently gang violence in mexico is rampant with ninety percent of cartel related crimes going unpunished government officials particularly at the state and local level are actively aiding and abetting the cartels carry out their crimes and low z to us which our state department has labeled a transnational criminal enterprise has been especially prolific in carrying out its crimes in all regions of mexico with the help of government agents the under a body of evidence in this case therefore makes clear that there is nothing that would stop us from making good on its threat to murder mrs sheehan as if she were returned to mexico and that is just one circumstance of many that makes this case particularly more compelling then many of this court's prior cases were has reversed the each and see and granted the applicant for relief under the convention so it's a life this is a very compelling story it really is and i'm troubled by it but to me i'm there are two legal issues that we need to wrestle with here one is the basically the officials the acquiescence and i need to know whether the concept of more likely had been not how that interact with a rogue official under a barrage and then secondly the relocation idea what where people are the victims of regular crime as a result of the cartels in mexico but this one has unusual facts and so i would really appreciate your help imagine my colleagues would have some of the same issues for haps can you address the how we if you will deal with more likely than not standard versus the rogue official from at all and what exactly the agency needed to show under bras romero in prague there are those cases both make clear that there is no rogue official exception to official acquiescence that the actions official acquiescence doesn't necessarily implicate the actions of the conduct of high ranking officials or nation wide policies now i think there are three cases of this court that really put into really why the record compels conclusion that mrs ms has established acquiescence the st is bring us rodriguez in that case the court found that the record compelled official acquiescence for two main reasons st was country condition evidence showing widespread violence and government acquiescence in that violence and it's essentially the exact same evidence that's in the record in this case the applicant in bring us rodriguez was also from mexico and in fact also from the state of veracruz or miss that but with respect the whole country is filled with violence but in this case the facts that troubled me in particular was that the police were in effect laughing as she was being effectively tortured doesn't that meet the standard and if it does what should we rely upon those that does that meet the standard or more likely than not that absolutely meets the standard and that brings me to the nd factor that the court relied on in bringing us for three days which is in that case the applicant testified that he had nd hand knowledge of acquiescence that his friends had reported homophobic crimes to the police and the police hernandez the court says where the local police officer witnesses a rd party committing torture and does not intervene to help the victim that constitutes official acquiescence per se those are exactly the facts of our case and i should also just emphasize we don't even need the atkins personal testimony necessarily to prove out official acquiescence in bromfield this court found official acquiescence on the basis of documentary evidence standing alone there the evidence showed widespread violence against gay and lesbian people in jamaica the applicant had never been tortured never been threatened with torture and this court didn't hesitate to find official acquiescence in that case as a matter of how do we find individual a threat of individualize persecution think that the fact that she has been personally singled out for death by one of the country's most powerful transnational drug cartels is very strong evidence that she would be tortured and in fact murdered her turned to mexico against her will the fact that that threat was followed up on nine years later underscores the fact that lho saved us has a long memory and intends to make good on its promise to murder her if she ever sets foot in the country again the result if i recall evidence th luna basically bribed local of vishal to not interfere in his family domestic violence issues is that correct that's correct your honor there is evidence in the record that he was able to bribe local officials to actually detain the mother of another mother of different children that that he was able to have her detained without any judicial process without any probable cause for iraq now getting to judge smith's nd question about the location so the agency's relocation analysis was insufficient for two reasons one it committed a legal air and nd commit illegal err by applying the wrong standard in contravention of this court's holding involved not zero that the applicant bears no burden to come forward with evidence as to internal relocation and secondly it failed to consider relevant evidence in the record on the question of delegation so the and that had to do with the zetas having power throughout the country  we laid out in our brief there is evidence in the record of committing crimes all throughout mexico in really is not safe any place in mexico that's that's what though that is exactly what the record shows that there is no limit to where the it's crimes and again i would emphasize that our own state department has labeled it a transnational enterprise so presumably able to carry out its threats across mexican borders as well certainly there is no evidence in the record to think that this court's opinion in module actually underscores the point where the applicant was initially kidnapped and beaten and even when he fled to a remote town and went into hiding was able to track him down there and attempt to murder him by tribe by shooting those sieges was also able to track down where his parents lived and sent threatening letters writing to murder him to his parents house so i think both the record and this court's prior case law leaves little doubt that lucy to us has nationwide powers do you believe that our existing case law adequately clarifies the two issues that i raised in this case or do we need an opinion further delineate the test that must be met to satisfy both issues i don't believe there's a need for a published opinion to clarify these issues the official acquiescence issue has been addressed in case after case after case where the b i e makes this exact same mistake where it relies on word assumes that you have to show the actions of high ranking officials or nation wide policies in nora's demonstrate official acquiescence so your honor already pointed out the ro and many many other cases so i don't think there's a need for polish opinion on that issue i would like to just quickly focus on what the appropriate remedy is in this case the court should not remand this case back to the agency for any further consideration the st thing to note is that the government hasn't requested or remained here and in fact despite the issue of what the appropriate remedy is being clearly raised in the opening brief the government opted not to respond secondly there is nothing extraordinary about granting full relief in a situation like this where what would would be the resolution i think that the the resolution of the case would say the record here compels the conclusion that mrs is more likely than not to be tortured if returned to mexico we were manned to the may it please the court rebeca offered philips on behalf of the united states attorney general i have to correct some factual assertions right off the bat bring guessed it was not a cat acquiescence case number one that only addressed asylum and it found government asserts that there are key differences between them and that was pointed out by the garcia one million case in particular in terms of when a government you know has taken measures but is ultimately unsuccessful  that that is distinguishable as not acquiescence just because it can't produce the results in terms of government effectiveness in garcia one million in the bring us rodriguez case the underlying decision before the court took it in bank i'm did make a cat decision actually in the government's favor and then on in bank your honor you found your re man did for the cat analysis to consider the h i v status of the petitioner in that case there was no actually any cat finding on the merits in that case your honor and so our brief points this out on page twenty six in terms of it being an asylum withholding case so i just want to start with that number to  ground absolutely in terms of you know what's good what's actually going on in other words it just because you legalize gay marriage what does that mean in terms of how people are being treated and i understand that in this case which you have only with respect to her  her homosexuality status let's deal with that there's actually two parts to this cat claim there's the zetas claim and there's the lesbian status claim i'd like to address both st with respect to her homosexuality there is no evidence in this record other than generalized evidence with respect to the government has offered protections to the community in terms of the algae bt community and what the record shows in this case is that yes there can be potential harm  potential discriminatory actions most notably towards trans women not lesbians i want to make that clear this record does indicate that there is some official corruption with respect to transgender individuals when i look  line cartel yes your honor i would agree with that because there was only generalized evidence and no one knew that she was a lesbian i'm not saying she needs to hide who she is at all but the only evidence in this record is that her family knew that she was a lesbian and was harming her and no one else would be looking to harm her because of being a lesbian so i absolutely agree with your honor so moving on to the los zetas part of her claim there are several aspects showing both with respect to the lack of the likelihood of torture and with respect to the lack of acquiesce nce and that brings me to my nd factual correction your honor there is nothing in this record that says the police watched her be tortured and laughed i have to direct this court attention to page one hundred and twenty two of the record her statement is pretty ambiguous in terms of what happened what she says is she's referring to the cousin at this point he would just point a gun to my head and they were all just laughing and she had been previously talking about his relatives th were all just laughing actually doesn't apply to any police at that point and in two thousand and five he beat me up so bad and it was and then it says in indiscernible and i believe it's probably referring to the location the police would drive by but and then on to page one hundred and twenty three but they wouldn't give me any help period they were just laughing at me so was that they were just laughing at me if you look at the rest of that paragraph she's a little bit repetitive in terms of her speaking was it  that's the key question now your honor i'm going to go with this both ways ok let's assume that it was the police but the government isn't even going to take that assumption ok because i don't believe she actually said that the police were laughing at her the police drove by she doesn't say that they saw her being armed but you would agree that it is a reasonable construction what you would it could be your honor so i'm going to go with it both ways ok so i'm the one hand maybe they didn't even actually see her being harmed at all and they weren't laughing at her but let's say they did let's say that they that that is what happened the what the board found and specifically recognize this in a footnote in its decision was that number one this is the closest and the only piece of evidence that she was her primary abuser for a long time was able to get i forget it was her mother somebody else was mother and baby and somebody else jailed through allegedly a bribe to the police so as not to interfere can we not assume that since she was being abused by the same guy and he had the relationship with the police that there's good reason to believe that they are corrupt and with respect to his family and personal matters they won't interfere well your honor there isn't really much explanation of all of how he was able to do that and st of all he hasn't been in mexico he has been in the united states now so to to the extent that he was able to maneuver anything that was i mean that was ages ago number one that was decades ago because he's been in the united states and in fact but with respect you know we have lots of evidence i feel person that on a number of these cases where you have powerful people that live in the united states that are part of the card till it or that they have a lot of money and they ordered people murdered and whatever all throughout mexico and elsewhere what what evidence should we look to that suggest that just because it was in the united states that because it was part of a state does that he couldn't corrupt and direct some local police department there's no indication that he had that kind of relationship with the organization as a whole or with the government as a whole anywhere what my house is about what about putting these relatives in jail with a bribe to the local police your honor there was a controversial is that that that his ex partner from way back in the day was that she claims that that's what he did i mean it's uncontroverted right i mean sure to the extent that she believes that that's what happened and it was decades ago and he was in mexico at that time and on the ground there not that he was able to get all these rd parties involved to maneuver that so to the extent that he's here and that was decades ago i mean it's pretty irrelevant at this point and also is not her in particular so relevant it may be attenuated but it is not  ok so your honor we would we would point out that his relationship to visit us has always been speculative at best because what he has is a couple relatives that were in the zetas and that they had sort of these  personal you know they were personally interested in making sure that he as their relative was not wronged by this woman that it wasn't a status thing to go after her it was a it was his personal relatives that were involved with her so there's no nothing linking they're trying to look out for their family relative with the whole greater organization of status and in fact when she went with them to baja california when she returned in two thousand and five  cartels you know she didn't point to any evidence saying that they would look for her anywhere as a status organization as opposed to his particular relatives acting in their sort of personal capacity and you know with respect would say that they were focused the record the i j a found that the that they were focused in the surrounding areas a very cruz mexico is an extremely large country and so been there yet so it's so it's so in other words and i want to get to the relocation finding in a minute but in other words in terms of what is the likelihood that the zeta us as a as a drug organization are looking for her as the zetas there's no evidence indicating that her just speculation based on his couple of relatives who were in the zetas all the sudden she certainly is as they are and she's credible but she's speculative and i have to have to but if she says it truly subjectively feels a certain way but subjective isn't the same thing as objective reasonable ness and it's not the same thing as proving something as a fact just because we believe that she believes not and i and i have to really point that out here because nobody is saying that she's not credible in terms of this is what she thinks but in terms of what the record supports somewhat the objective evidence suggests the zetas were not looking for her as a drug organization well i you know i'm not track with you we when we hear these immigration cases we hear all kinds of stories that some of them are exactly the same and probably are manufactured but this one you have a terrible story of personal violence rape and abuse believe a bull level of abuse she tells us in the record what happened she talks about the say that she talks about the role of the  zetas with luna and perhaps others she fears the zetas they came to her in the united states and told her if she ever came back she'd be murdered now you may say we're just speculating but she says that nobody contradicts it and at least in the immigration context unlike say a criminal trial we have to take this as true and if we take it as true i don't see where the government's position on this really holds a lot of water under a few things that they just didn't come to the united states to threaten her what happened was her luna's children from a prior relationship came to her ok there was nothing saying that everybody related to  this i didn't see how his children from a prior relationship who had been living in the united states in california or they threatened that she would be killed but they're here in the u s they're his children from a prior relationship and they and you know they're looking out for their dad because they think that she put him in jail he was sexually abusing her oldest child and so she put him in jail for that and they were pretty upset about it and they came and found her this is all on a very personal level this is not some big zeta sir coming after me and this is a this are now involved is this organization i have to emphasize that these are individual relatives who were mad that their relative was being mistreated records state that yet the record states that it was his children or if you don't have a get out of the record state that they were mad because she put him in want her putting away their father ok but he sexually abused her daughter so she pretty much had no choice it's your honor it's a very sad story but i do what i do and you know we have a legal standard to meet and this unfortunately describes so many people in terms of general fears of criminal violence see that's i think that's what judge smith is saying this is not this is not a story generally describes people with generalize here this woman has been persecuted by the zetas now they may or may not be related to her or her ex husband but there are also the zetas your honor that's where it's unclear to what extent how many exactly we know his cousin was significantly we see about how gangs operate the gangs are a family right and they could be related or not related but still a family and they do each other's that that's true your honor but to the extent that this is gangs and i also wanted to mention with the acquiescence part i mean there there was only as i mentioned this one attenuated instant to use your words your honor it was very it's from a very long two thousand and five a single incident that's unclear but even if the police at that point in the government's not disputing that a local official could be the one to acquiesce that is not what we're disputing what we're saying is you have to show more likely than not going forward based on one this is the board footnote a vague description of a single incident from two thousand and five does not show government acquiescence more likely than not going forward your honor i see that my time has run out but i'm happy to answer any further questions that the court  if i might your honour's address a couple of things that my friend on the other side just made so st my friend on the other side said that the critical issue relating to the death threat in mexico where the police watched and failed to intervene she said that the key issue was who was laughing whether it was the cousin and the zetas laughing with the police that is completely immaterial to the analysis what matters is that police witnessed the the assault  or at gunpoint and fail to intervene whether they happened to be laughing while they failed to carry out their obligation to help mrs sheehan is or not just simply doesn't matter secondly the follow up death threat in two thousand and fourteen there just taking a step back from the facts of this case this the facts of this case are far more compelling than prior cases where this court has granted full relief under the convention against torture in haley for example this court reversed the agency and  relief on the basis of a single threat to arrest the applicant here misses as has two not one but two threats and not merely to arrest her but to murder her in husseini this court granted full relief under the convention against  torture on the basis of documentary evidence alone in that case unlike here the applicant was deemed not to be credible because he actually committed immigration fraud at nearly every stage of the proceeding he had never been tortured he had never been threatened with torture in the past and yet this court still granted full relief so if the facts of hayley and hussainy compel the conclusion that the applicant deserve relief under the convention against torture there is no reason to reach a different result here and certainly the government has not furnished this court with any such reason the government does not respond to haley does not respond to any and its briefs and is provided this court with no sound basis to depart from those cases or any of the other cases discussed in the opening brief where for relief was granted such as such as coop such as parata this court recently noted that unnecessary remains back to the agency or disfavor because the unduly prolong the litigation and potentially set up a situation where the applicant might never get resolution because the case is costly ping pong back and forth between this court in the agency that is consideration is particularly acute here where the applicant is detained and has been detained  and is desperately trying to be reunited with her six american children she's demonstrated entitlement to relief she deserves the opportunity to live freely in the only country that she can call home all right thank you very much count on thank you recognize