acquiesce to torture either through direct participation or willful blindness and that he presented no individual lights proof of torture that a government official or someone acting in an official capacity would acquiesce in the torture of the petitioner the the part of your case that interests me is the i j z finding that nothing in the general background documentation would establish that a government official would be likely to acquiesce in the torture of responded specifically and i wonder if that places a a heavier burden on your client a ninth circuit along would which is to say it seems to me that you had to demonstrate government acquiescence in the kind of gang violence rosalie's described but i don't know that you had to demonstrate that the government would acquiesce in his torture specifically and i wonder if you'd agree with me there  yes and actually this is really the the first point i wanted to bring up in this and it really has to do with what the concept of acquiescence and you know the the the cases are kind of all over on this i mean even the one discussed by the respondent garcia milian yeah it talks about that you know government ineffectiveness general government in effect of this to prevent or investigate criminal activities doesn't raise an inference of the likelihood of torture but on the other hand it does talk about it does use the inability language and it then let's let's assume you're right for second let's assume that the i j a applied the wrong standard yet trying to determine whether or not there was acquiescence here i'm reading from the i g is findings page four therefore the court concludes that the evidence in this case simply is insufficient to establish that it is more likely than not that the responder would be tortured in el salvador and or that there would be government acquiescence so it seems to me i jamie to findings one is that you hadn't sufficiently established the that was more likely than not there would be torture and also if there were you hadn't established it was more likely than not that it would be with the acquiescence of the government so if there was an error on the second part why does it why should we grant the petition if the i g just found it's a matter of fact that your client had met his burden with respect to the likelihood of torture so and or is a strange thing but it suggests to me you didn't show either side of this so much so in ok so there's two i mean i've course i've been arguing that the that the agency looked at the evidence through too narrow a lens well but but i think that your first part is just is there a likelihood is there any is the language you have to establish that it's more likely than not that there's a likelihood that your client would have been tortured if richard salvador by whom is a separate issue the acquiescence of the government but how do you get past the first part well i mean i mean i think it's so i think that if i understand correctly the question that there wasn't any it's really sort of the second thing i mentioned that there was no individual law he's just there was something individualized in this in in his showing that someone in particular would be would target him if he wasn't subject to torture when he lived there forever yeah but he's not been in the united assuming government inability yes so assuming that so many government is dying to torture somebody when they return the question is why him the court the i j a says you haven't shown that it's more likely than not that you would be glare romo saying that that they can claim may be satisfied with evidence of country conditions alone and then in that decision it cites to us we may be sandwiched yeah basically satisfied the question is but ok can i just be given what judge hawkins said those are facts that might suggest that the right is not so likely to be tortured why couldn't the idea what is the i g compelled to find a likelihood of torture understand there are cases that suggested country reports and conditions are the kind of evidence that would support it but he says i've considered all the evidence and i don't think there's a likelihood you're going to be tortured is that but is there no evidence supporting that finding well the that one gets my my problem is that really it begins a step or earlier the judge didn't take a look at the case and in terms of inability and it would be government's inability to protect against violence from gangs so i mean let me try this one i try this one more time yeah i think what the judge said was you haven't shown that it's more like you than not that you would be subject to violence by gangs and then the judge may have made a mistake in determining whether violence by gangs was with government acquiescence deal with the first part of that so i mean to i mean it might seem like i'm not answering the question but the thing is i think that it's kind of a fruit of the poisonous tree is that the judge didn't it's a factual question the judge didn't look at all of this in terms of the inability and so i think that's a factual question that the court has to re  and to the judge for looking at mean it's a combination of looking at it through the correct lens plus the facts of the case and and i and i since the judge didn't look at it in those terms you know it's not for th hypothetical and because i've made that finding i don't have to deal with acquiescence with that beer i'm this record that would not be enough because again you have to you have to look at it with a particular legal lens to torture is not and whether or not you're likely to be tortured is not a legal concept it's the legal  may say sorry you know i'm looking at it through inability now because i've been told i have to and i'm been a judge might find it in looking through that lens that he didn't meet his burden but that hasn't happened yet and so on this record  that only only to the extent that he was forced to make the payments and he was afraid of the consequences that money was demand d and then he and then at some point he stopped and that could be a problem for him and also if he comes back if he returns then he is returning basically to the same type of situation f r twelve zero eight eighteen a one defines torture for purposes of cat as any act by which severe pain or suffering whether physical or mental is intentionally inflicted on a person and then further down in subsection seven it defines acquiescence as a question of a public official as requiring that the public official prior to to the activity constituting torture have awareness of such activity referring back to th addition of torture that relates to a person isn't he said is that really so let's assume we have a government that says we don't care for gangs torture people and somebody brought to torture people that born to a particular group they really have to know what advance which people they're going to torture for that to be government acquiescence you know because they're the government would have you know blankly a confirmed in your hypothetical which is not applicable here particular person and that's i think that's the problem judge identified here that it does acquiescence really require that the government have it awareness that the torture will be aimed at a particular person or that there are torture out there that they don't care to control it does require to the particular person or at least a likelihood that that particular person would be tortured and the reason that's the other steps the other side of the equation of this to there's there's two problems here one is is there a likelihood that you will be tortured right and i mean the second is that we are torturers act with the acquiescence or on behalf of the government rights but look at the second part with respect to the second part which is sort of the legal part to your your colleagues arguing is there really requirement that the government have an awareness that torture will be aimed at a specific person but your honor by necessity there is a requirement that it has to be certainly narrower than you know generalized conditions of the in the country at large because precisely because your hypothetical never is the circumstance and i hope it never is the circumstance that a country would say full full stop we know there's torture we're not going to do anything to stop it rather now when there is under amount of evidence in this record and in other records that we see from some governments and central america maybe not this one are corrupt and say to the gangs do what you want as long as you give us money and they know the gangs are torturing people a ssume that hypothetical for a second this the government really have to know that it's mr rosenthal us that the gang is going to torture well what the court what the government has what the agency has to do is it has to and this is clear in the case  i think the agency's ruling may stand independently on that you're talking about the legal side of the equation if he had shown a likelihood of torture would it be with the acquiescence of the government and i guess what i'm resisting is the notion that acquiesce requires an awareness that this particular person well you are as i stated at the outset i do believe that it's an unnatural reading certainly to start with the hopefully what is we all agree on torture is certainly  requiring specificity with this individual likely be tortured and i got a natural reading of that same regulation and this court case law addressing acquiescence is that this individual lies  my circumstance and here's proof that people of my circumstance are subjected to torture with the government turning a blind eye to no no your honor that's not the government's position that's exactly what should be happening a petition should be saying here my circumstances and here's why this will lead to my bench will torture because the government's going to turn a blind eye to this it's relevant to that in is a number of factors including whether that's happened in the past in the current country conditions but so to answer that question again no that's not the government's position one thing the government would like to know as the panel has already acknowledged in the questioning of mr resolve this camp counsel mr davis record pages three hundred forty four here the agency found that both the torture and the state action prangs were unsatisfied based on here what is can only be described as a are two prongs to the cat analysis and they are independently dispositive because they must both be satisfied the first prong is a likelihood of torture and the second is with the government acquiescence and here the got the agency reasonably concluded that there was no individualized likelihood of torture and on this factually to thin record on petition for review the record cannot compel a contrary finding and either of these consider first of all the petitioner alleges no legal errors as to the likelihood of torture analysis except for the plainly faulty one that the agency considered only the factor of past torture so having cleared the deck of any potential legal errors we're looking at why the absence why substantial evidence supports that finding and we have first the context which was by the agency of record page forty three that mr rizal is abandon his eye in a based asylum and withholding claims based on a lack of nexus so already we're implicitly conceding or he's implicitly conceding he won't be targeted for torture based on those protected grounds at least you know  t you don't need to protect the ground you don't know that but now we wipe those off the deck so now what do we have left we look at his testimony which was considered by the agency it's as it occupies only fifteen pages of transcript and it is a simple as he left all salvador  unspecified gang members took his money when he was seventeen or eighteen years old the gang members never virtually threatened him or tortured him he does not challenge the board's conclusion that the beatings he witnessed or threats there are would amount to torture and he had no contact and or any implicit threat in that kind of a beating to the extent that the beating would amount to an implicit threat to a bystander who's observing it would not rise to the level of torture the beatings themselves would not rise to the level of torture right because it goes to the fact of whether or not the government was aware it's relevant to whether the government was aware and it is not a slug indicates that the the that the lack of report doesn't necessarily indicate that they weren't aware right since here we have plenty of evidence based on the country reports that they were not only acquiesced but were complicit i wonder if this if that finding actually matters at all in the context of this case but when you say matters it certainly is relevant one way or another it cuts in the fit in the indication that there was likely not awareness specifically as to this individual he can't say for example which would be highly relevant for him and probably helpful for him that you know what the police here saw me percent for in particular beating and they they did not respond when i reported this about i'm looking at the i findings in this case the i just make the finding you say that that beatings don't arise to torture the board does that i know point can't make can a board make that finding on this record the i j a just simply says you haven't shown that it's more likely than not that any of this will happen to you because you've been gone so far from the country and it never happened to you before not sure the i j a makes a finding that even if he finds him credible so even if these beatings even if these beatings that you witnessed were not torture is there really a finding that this record oh you are there certainly did the board does a page for conclude that he doesn't certainly indicate on it on his appeal to the board  subjected to these it would be torture just to be sure you are on page four in the first full paragraph in the middle of it the board respondent argues the past torture threats that are not now forgive me further down four lines up from the bottom the respondent argues that he witnessed the beatings of other people who refused to give money to the gang members those constituting implicit unspoken threats of receiving the same treatment if he did not pay however he has not established that such beatings were threats of such meet the definition of torture and i suppose that could be referring to the fact that he did not present that claim to the i petition just wanted to state what ok one thing that goes to the what is it that the that the authorities that has to be aware of and  citing to madrid seven sixteen fed third it five zero nine where it says it is sufficient that the public official be aware that torture of this sort feared by the applicant occurs and remain willfully blind to it it's so it's it's not as personalize it's of the sort that is feared by the applicant and just getting to the whole thing about the consequences of the failure to pay is often results not only in harassment speeding but in violence by gang members that could lead to that could rise to the level of torture and