heard in this case no one disputes the petitioners an immigrant who's engaged counsel no one disputes that the i g was aware that the petitioner having gauged counsel and no one disputes the petitioners counsel counsel had been suspended by the state bar of california and was therefore unable to represent the petitioner at this may twelfth two thousand and four hearing the i g should have immediately taken several steps first he should have been sure understood that his attorney had been suspended that he was being disciplined and that he was therefore unable to represent the petitioner until he was reinstated  suspended in december of two thousand and three as the state bar's web page indicates why didn't you inform the court at that time why didn't you inform you our general counsel of your suspension within thirty days as you were required to do by the governing regulations that's one testimony now from our perspective this was profoundly improper because although the i j a admittedly has some legitimate interest in learning why mr pena had been suspended and when petitioner has learned about  g can't encroach on the right to counsel while attempting to determine whether a continuance for counsel is appropriate but that's exactly what the immigration judge did here and not unexpectedly the petitioner got nervous he got confused you made mistakes he contradicted himself but that's what's going to happen when you have a young an educated unsophisticated alien who without any preparation from counsel is forced to fend for himself in the petitioner testified that he had received the opinions letter just the day before the hearing and if you look at i believe it's a clip here at the end of the testimony whether this petitioner lied this is really it's the fourth of his seventy eight and i sort of want to walk through that in detail because it seems to me that if a lawyer had been here a lawyer would have questioned whether there had been a proper interpretation of  that was interpreted as something like did you speak with him after you receive that letter it's a very slight difference you know and it's easy you can imagine interpreter saying something and did you speak with him after you see that letter and read it and that was after received that letter and if attorney had been there he would've been listening for that translation he would have asked to have the tape played back to see what precisely was that this guy didn't have the opportunity to do that because he didn't have a lawyer there to represent him the bottom line in court has not decided the question i mean it seems like the cases where the issue of prejudice comes up prejudice is defined rather generously i mean it's really a question of whether or not the case could have been presented in a more effective manner and using that statutory right to counsel case it seems to me that the right to counsel is so fundamental and where counsel is not provided you have no idea what would have really happened at this guy's hearing if he'd had a competent attorney representing him like i say there may have been translation issues there would have been evidence that was presented i think you have to presume that there's prejudice because we have no way of knowing how this would have unraveled this case would have turned out if counsel had been present to defend this man's interests but you don't have to reach that question in this case because under this court's definition of prejudice there's no doubt this guy suffered prejudice he was threatened by gangs in el salvador he could have made a social group argument that individuals who'd been threatened by the salvadoran gangs and refused to threat certainly is enough to give this guy a basis to claim a reasonable fear a future issue in life that are not approved in the others the issue there is whether the threats were on account of political opinion whether the how are we supposed to deal with that i don't really agree with that point i mean it seems to me that the agencies never fully addressed the position that we're taking i mean in front of the immigration judge obviously this guy had no lawyer so the argument was never really developed just that he was to obtain counsel and the board when it was reviewing the immigration judge decision knew from the record that that the alien that the petitioner was requesting a continuous to obtain counsel so knew that the right to counsel the privilege to make some sort of the final on this one he himself appeared before this court today and present on truthful testimony in an attempt to delay the proceedings of this case  delay those proceedings indefinitely until his counsel comes to represent that's what that's why these things are put in the immigration judge's discretion and whether it's this this case really turns on whether there was good cause to continue a key aspect of the i g f conclusion here that this guy had enough time to find counsel but it's just wrong this pair were hired mr pena may sixth two thousand and three that's a fourth on page one fifty three of the administrative record on delaying it finding counsel he found counsel he had a lawyer problem was that his lawyer got suspended and the critical question here is when did this petitioner learn that his lawyer had been suspended but the immigration judge never asked that question in either case would he have had enough time to prepare for a hearing on the merits of his assign a plan let's assume that he didn't get the letter a week before even though the postmark on the envelope appears to say he got it the day before let's assume he got it a week before the deadline had a speculative because i was representing that the time that he would have been gathering witnesses certainly country conditions evidence and developing his testimony at this point what evidence was presented was only that submitted by the immigration judge during questioning and the government lawyer is this guy had no wire he didn't present anything in addition to what the government presented he presented no case whatsoever and that's prejudicial actually cases turtle be submitted