discretion your honor the petitioner hired counsel to assist him to navigate through immigration proceedings which are very difficult for laypeople the petitioner would not have known what to do  absent counsel which is why he retained counsel he did agree or he did not refute the fact that he had not maintained contact with his counsel however there were things that he could not have done such as violent motion to continue to go and get his own fingerprints nowhere to go to do that those are things that his counsel would have been able to guide him to do had his counsel been diligent so he went dark for ten months correct essentially you honor he did come back he made contact with his counsel between july and august he had separated from his wife he had moved out and moved in with a girlfriend he had given he had had a new baby that was born with a medical condition in august of two thousand and fourteen he did not have phone service or internet service in his new residence he was obviously not checking with his old residence to see if he was being communicated or receiving communications from his counsel but he didn't make the effort to contact his counsel either  respondent in in court as to what their duties are in obligations specifically to the petitioner in this case that they must keep in touch with counsel and that it is their obligation to file their applications for relief in this i do believe that argued that it wasn't a piece of discretion because the court did not do a complete analysis of when continuance can be granted yes  because should be shown must be shown it is required but there was no discussion as to the number of continuances in the case the inconvenience it would cost to the court for yet another continuance to be granted the reasonableness of the continuance granted the reasonableness of his conduct we have just discussed it was unreasonable for him to maintain or to lose contact with his counsel for such a lengthy period of time although it does appear that he does have some reasons there were ways to mitigate that and he did not do so there weren't that many continuance is granted in this case in fact the case was before the board from two thousand and twelve to two thousand and thirteen and the next appearance after the ring man was in december of two thousand and thirteen the court said a final deadline of june two thousand and fourteen and the merits hearing with that in september so there was not and zorba to an amount of continuance is granted in this case that an additional continuance would have been good morning may it please the court change offer for the respondent the board acted within its discretion here when it up held the immigration judge's decision finding that mr  establish good cause for a continuance the board also acted within its discretion when it found no ineffective assistance of counsel here the record shows that late day was unresponsive to his attorney's requests to reach him for a period of nine to ten months at his final individual merits conduct which opposing counsel has just conceded is unreasonable that led to his failure to complete his biometrics and have his applications denied as abandoned michel yes how many how many total proceedings spanned three and a half years he made four appearances before the immigration judge during that three and a half year period he requested one continuance three days before his final individual merits hearing the explanation he provided for that continuance request that was that he simply was not prepared to go forward him that his circumstances had changed he had new equities he had a new partner he had a new child that motion was filed late i did just did not have an opportunity to respond and this goes to the queen factors the four factors the court considers in determining whether a continuances is unreasonable while he had not asked for a significant number of continuance as previously the case had been pending for three and a half years the case had previously been dismissed because counsel failed to file an application on his behalf so given the history of the case mr pedia late pay had an even greater  obligation to ensure that his counsel who he chose to retain after she was admonished by the board i had an obligation to ensure that that counsel was acting diligently on his behalf so one of your colleagues points was that the b i did not explicitly go through the other factors of the analysis to say ok here are the other three how inconvenient is this and so on and so forth is for the agency to address all the factors the the the reasonableness here of the aliens conduct was the overriding factor here and the board certainly address that in it decision it dressed the reason oneness of his conduct both in finding that he established or rather failed to establish good cause for a continuance and also failed to establish an effective assistance given the gravity of rather to comply with the court's deadlines in two thousand and eleven he was given instructions to submit his applications by january two thousand and twelve no applications biometrics and nothing was filed his case was dismissed when the board essentially gave him another chance by granting his motion to reopen admonishing counsel giving him another opportunity he failed to maintain contact with his his his counsel the stakes we agree are certainly high and because the stakes are high it was incumbent upon him to follow up with he has a new american citizen child right correct does the record show whether or not he was supporting the child it does not it does not on the matter of children again the stakes being high it's worth noting that he has  four adult us citizen children ranging from the age of twenty to thirty we do not know whether they have filed any applications for relief on his behalf but that is an option for him he can  that individuals have again if we thought this were an appropriate case for mediation we would have made an effort to mediate it at an earlier stage we believe that he failed to comply with his obligations to maintain contact with his counsel this the stakes are very high he knew the stakes were very high had his case dismissed once before and that's one of the things the the i g said in his september two thousand and fourteen order he said given the history of the case  he didn't have any confidence that the same thing wouldn't happen again that there wouldn't be another failure to do what was required the the underlying alleged  rehabilitation no further criminal convictions and hardship to to his family and we simply don't know the answers to those questions because the record is then but because the denial of a continu cannot be overturned except upon a finding of clear abuse we would ask that you up hold the agency's decision here and also find that the agency's decision finding no if and no ineffective assistance of counsel was not arbitrary in response to the government's claim that there is no ineffective assistance of counsel the board did not take the time to evaluate that with the most real  bad there were several instances in which the board could have made a finding that ineffective assistance did exist previously they had made a finding when they granted the st motion to reopen it they overlooked the fact that they had previously granted a motion to reopen on based on in effect with the sense of counsel they had failed to address in their two thousand and sixteen decision whether trial counsel was we show in our arguments that counsel failed to advice the court that she had lost contact with the petitioner which was an option for her she failed to advise the court that the controlled substance conviction had not been expunged that petitioners fingerprints ha board did not make any kind of those determinations or evaluate that when denying the motion to reopen in two thousand and sixteen with regard to the government's argument regarding the continu yes it does appear that the petitioners conduct may have been unreasonable but again he did have counsel to assist him in the state the factors that i just listed should have been taken into consideration by the board when determining ok both counsel and the petitioner have been given warnings to comply with the court's deadlines to file documents as i stated earlier that the petitioner would not have known what documents that he would have needed in order to prepare them himself and turn them in himself without his counsel it also appears in the record that counsel did not know what documents she needed to prepare and that is something that the court considered when they granted the st motion to reopen it somehow they overlooked that in the decision in two thousand and sixteen so i believe that the respondent has made showing that good cause did exist in spite of his unreasonable conduct that he was unable to represent himself when he had counsel and that his counsel did not act diligently on his behalf counsel the government indicates that he may have alternative remedies available is he pursuing any other i'm not aware that he's pursued we don't have the remedies your honor and i do believe that