already did my st point which was the standard review now i'm going to the fact that you know persecution definition in your decision should be a two way street so the same thing that's the finest persecution when somebody other people now klein and testified at a hearing in which he indicated that he was a military commissioner in guatemala they also engage in any kind of physical persecution or desk rajat cetera but when he said was often times when he told the military about the location of guerrillas that they would disappear and there was a red that they would disappear and never come back now the definition of persecution includes assisting others in the persecution of people so tell me whether his admissions during the course of this airing constituted a your response now to judge sessions talked about the person my understanding just to clarify i think we talk about many people multiple people not just one is that right well what i what i would what i would like to say that this is just  there have to be like persecution but persecuted on account like a perfect the ground like there are cases where there's a way out of this you know property dispute or somebody was you know money and we say oh well you're not going to get it out if i don't for that because so so when you have a persecution bar there is one large exception to the application of the persecution bar in that it is in the defense and this is a very interesting case because apparently your client not only was a military commissioner and that there's some evidence to suggest that they were really at the heart of the persecution but he also was in civil defen his village and he was of civil the fin civil defense affairs village against the guerrillas and so this is a part of his civil defense work during the course of a civil war which is going on between the guerrillas and the guatemalan army at this point he's giving information to the guatemalan army is he giving him from the information to persecute those people or is he giving information to defend the village from the attack of these particular guerrillas which is the nd part of his responsibility do you know what is going on here when he what i would say was that you know it sounds to me from the record that there were a lot of civil defense that he was involved in one of the things that we got that the government  has the burden is that any individual you know was persecuted and we don't know that any individual is persecuted you know for you know what is actually in the record and also there is quite an idea in your case law about a continuum and how sometimes went away from their villages and never came back so what's very far away from communicate the next step and the link in the chain there but i don't know if if there was the reason they disappeared was on account of what he said i don't of you know whatever disappearances that you know you are talking about or executions and that is why he is more remote he is more remote the same way chris and i can send you a letter brief with patience and there's also a reason he's called r and he actually arrested people and those people also you know may have disappeared or whatever but you still found that there was too tenuous connection to to invoke the  he then was almost executed in a car and thrown while he jumped out and was shot again when he was on the ground and he's saying that the military is shooting him ok so my st question is is that correct is the military actually out to shoot him that's st and then the nd is this is asked persecution past torture is there any reason to believe that he is still at risk if he goes back i read the letters from the from the family members describe him being at tremendous have any it outside the record evidence but i would also in addition to the things that you know he also has relative close relatives that were you know member i don't remember like every fact in my head and i know that there were other relatives that were also were killed dispositive for us as the or as the government has suggested it's my position that there is nothing to arrest that speculation on and that there's nothing in the record speculation on and that there's corroborating evidence that his relatives were also you know harshly treated you know killed or tortured or whatever and i don't remember the exact thing that happened with relatives but because that is a pure conjecture and speculation  all i don't think that's the country apart the record is the most recent nd of all the country of course has to be taken with a grain of salt you know frequently when we when america are actually cases i'll try to pull something after argument where recent opinion i'm i'm speaking of train general bar i mean very recent and i cannot pronounce the name forgive me you will know what it is like new g see i wasn't quite as far off about the question has is it you know is the government's position that we of course that changes the burden of proof here in the shifting is it your position that we apply that or not i don't i don't until it actually changed the burden of proof i believe in that case it was a question of who bears the burden of proof is that shifting yes there were things i don't think it has always been like stated that the government has the burden of proof of producing evidence it's not the burden of the government to actually produce the evidence you can use whatever evidence is in the record if it is the testimony of the of the petitioner if it was documents it's a petition to put  production and yet i think we're miscommunicate i'm not speaking of burden part of production can can you just tell me whether it's your position that the new standard applies that's the easy way for me to ask my question i would say yes i hadn't really thought about that i would say only where alien ordered or incited but where he assisted or otherwise participated in showing that congress was really concerned with a broad range of activity because this is somebody who is seeking relief which is you know of really a gift to to people who come to the country because it leads to citizenship in the united states and also the regulation in th that governs burdens of proof has a specific section that deals with mandatory bars and as i mentioned before all the evidence has to indicate is that the bar may apply in this case you have a person who  it was a little unclear what the civil defense i believe that you know just in general in other cases that i've read that the civil defense was you know to protect a village but ok case i mean you would you would agree that if the civil rights is going on that the persecution by does not apply right if there is a civil right the persecution by generally does not apply i suppose it could be in extreme cases perhaps it would but if if we're engaged in a battle that's the civil war that's not a that's not persecution so when you have a person like mr cho at this however is job is to provide military intelligence as a military commissioner to the military and part of his job is to defend the village  doing st of all people who are in mr or chills position where they were both military commissioners and chiefs the record shows that those particular people have very few parameters on their authority and that they regularly abuse to the extent to where they engage it and we agree just human rights violations that's number one number two this record is full of of examples of where these military commissioners  in the civil defense patrols went far beyond what would be considered fair war practices in that they gave information about just civilians and regular citizens who were seemed to be sympathetic most brutal division of the military they regularly engaged in torture they regularly killed people and he said these peasants they were not girl is necessarily and they were not  military people that they would it was generally known that they would be taken away and that they would disappear they would never come back and he said how do you know that that was just he said that was just information people knew we were well aware of that so this is not a question of incra give me the right guy i think i'm missing your point and that's an important one else should go look at the record say that i think the point you're making is this included people who were not involved and they got swept up but on this page this example is a somebody who is hiding for the conflict that's why that the big sample you're giving doesn't seem to match up unless i'm missing the point you're making it's unclear where why he was hiding something hit why he was hiding weapons but he was a peasant he was not a guerrilla he was not a soldier and yet said yes those people would be arrested and turned over to the us to do so on and there is other evidence in the record that they also rested people who they thought civilians who they thought might have information about with girls were hiding and to get information from those people they would be tortured or harmed and in some way and many of them disappeared they were agree just human rights violations going on in the particular areas were restore and during the exact particular time that he served i'd like to address a couple of cases is my opponent referenced the crista case i argued both of the st of cases the st one in which the petition was granted was a soldier in the particular division that was involved in the genocide there was no evidence that he shot at anybody this he you know children on what he was trained as  he was trained in a particular weapon he was there into to kill or time and his battalion was involved in the genocide and the court denied it was a petition in that case finding the do was sufficient evidence in this case and he had no way of knowing what his appears did with intelligence that he provided although you did make reference i think at least you know one or more cases that they went away i think that was attributed to him saying that but  why why is that not sufficient you know if he didn't personally no harm and he did know exactly what his superiors did a wise about sufficient to rebut you know the were but he didn't need to know that any particular person that he turned over to the us to was harmed it was generally known that the job of the military commissioners was to root out people who had information about the guerillas or otherwise opposed to the government and without their help and this is the change my opponent said well he's very far down the line he wasn't very far down the line without his information to would not have been able to locate and target those people you know in the way that they did he was essential to this whole operation and the fact that he knew generally that that his job is i'm just struggling with this whole could have the conditions for for a of like if you can explain why it was in the older report and how could they have demonstrated whether or there was or were not a breat the past three decades i really was struggling to find that well i'm not so i'm not really clear that there was a significance to that i mean he did testify that he was shot it's not really clear i mean he said he believed that there were military here and so we take as credible testimony is true why isn't that sufficient based on everything that he testified i think judge sessions outlined everything that happened to  guess is there any of i'm just trying to if i give you a chance to talk about that because you were there was never an adverse credibility any determination they were just saying oh we have these country ports that say in the eighty's the ninety's yes he would still be teddy seven who had been shot by the military he was told the military was out shooting people because they did not want this closure right they had been doing in the seventy's and eighty's and everyone who was a military commissioner at that point proof presented a risk of disclosure of what they were doing and then he also  said that there's evidence to believe that of the four other members of his family who were killed that was by the military and he also testified that he feared that the military was like people take out  or take revenge on his family in groton nala you know because of his testimony in court here in fact he said that he was extraordinarily reluctant to say anything because he was deathly afraid that the bella terry would take it out on his family in great amala he throughout the hearing linked up his fear to the military to his what i remembered but i would say that it was his show that it is likely than not he would be tortured there yes if you take into account past torture that is one factor that you do take into whatever think this pick of factor according to have what i'm trying to get at makes i think it just makes sense i mean the here is this is you know what happened to him is thirty years ago it's not even clear that the military is constituted in the same way he has to be targeted by a government or by you know an agency of the government you know and it's his burden to prove that it's not the government's burden to prove that he would not be it's his burden because he's seeking protection under the convention and so if he had you know more recent country reports that showed that the military was was pursuing these people but now with thirty years later there is no evidence that military commissions have been t to provide to provide evidence against him there's no evidence that anyone who has been who has sought asylum here and been denied asylum in testified has gone back as a military commission and been harmed and so you know if he has to show that it's more likely than not that he would be tortured by the government and there really after thirty years i would say that it makes sense that something that happens to him discrete incidents by  certain people while it may be is certainly pro but can you give me your best case from their eye off the top of my head no but i but i will certainly follow up with that but i think that the court has to look at all of this because i have i'm talking about the incident that happened l well i'm talking about the incident that happened to him and he doesn't link up what happened to his family members what happens in the other none of his family members were military commissioners and what my opponent is arguing is that or was shot was a military commissioner and that is why he felt that his brother was shot because he was a military commission or what he said he went back to say your use of the word felt is exactly that what he felt i mean this is a country where you have a civil war there were people being killed being tortured being persecuted for various reasons all over the country it wasn't always clear why they were a target and who made them a target but the question did he prove this thirty years later if he were to return there that the government would who would seek him out and and torture him based on what he did thirty years  now you know i believe he is but he is not to change so he is wherever he lives i'm not sure exactly for us my opponent was no living with his daughter and son in law  ego like was talking about the fact that asylum confers citizenship and like maybe he doesn't deserve it i don't i don't say that he doesn't but that is her concern so if this court only convention against torture relief or said that that was appropriate or sent back for more investigation on that in another trial then that does not lead to citizenship so that might influence you another thing is that your time is up but i did have a question because i'm just trying to figure out the opening brief says that he was your client was removed from guatemala do you know where your client top i don't know i just came in and i was only studying the record and so i did not inquire but i can send you a notification through the serve you would like do you want me to do that i'd like to know where he is so