persecution argument your honor i'm not going to fight that fight i think the issue here is what's what's a court supposed to do when an immigration judge simply ignores key pieces of evidence evidence which really could determine the outcome of an asylum claim because i think that's what evidence that this tape or in government is actively sink seeking out and prosecuting homosexual relationships or individuals engaging in those relationships just wrong if you look at page two ninety two of the administrative record which is  an academic article written by a professor from the national university of singapore that says that while section three seventy seven of the criminal code is quote difficult to enforce section three seventy seven am which punishes any male person who in public or private commits any act of gross indecency with another male is called regularly enforced the same article says on page two ninety three quote homosexual or rats based on entrapment are a regular feature of police work two things i mean some beginning on page seventy three there is no evidence that the government of singapore is actively seeking out and prosecuting homosexual relationships he goes on to say there's no evidence of them prosecuting private acts now come to that in a second interesting because this is a document that was prepared by the immigration and naturalization service you know for immigration service in adjudicating asylum claims they have their own resources research center this is a document prepared by the a culture underground and it's attempting to prevent gay men from essentially coupling up and what that section twenty five page twenty five of the administrative record what it says what it shows is that i mean first you need to sort of look at the context we're talking about a situation where gay men literally are driven underground the government and the media from publishing anything all that that not only structural pornographic images but that the government bans the media from publishing anything at all the that's the way the immigration judge is framing this decision but what i'm trying to say that are never going to have the opportunity to have gay sex in private because what the singapore government is doing and if you look at page twenty five of the record it shows it pretty clearly it's intercepting them it's preventing them from  being arrested because they're attempting to to find a sexual partner in a public place that's altogether different and because of that it's true you would be hard pressed to prove that they're breaking into people's homes and they're you know spying on people and arresting them when their own begs but that's not what they're doing what they're doing is attempting to prevent them from ever getting into their own beds because they're arresting them and sending them to jail as soon as they make any sort of  sexual pass at another bank so is this is not meant to be rhetorical but is what your client really saying is that the activities he could freely engage in in orlando florida  can't engage in singapore yes that's that's true i mean he can't engage and he can't be a gay man freely in singapore because part of being a gay man is having sex with other men and the law prohibits that still point authorities go out of their way to prevent people from coupling up the other thing i want to say on this point your honor because i think it's simply this goes back to what we're saying before about how to apply the substantial evidence test it again it seems to me that if the immigration judge makes statements obviously the laws that prohibit pornography but the laws that deal with gay pornography extend well beyond anything that we could consider pornographic it bans any materials that portray homosexuals in a legitimate as having a legitimate or acceptable precisely but my point your honor is that if you look at this record and the way the singaporean government sources really attempts to drive go the culture underground but leans gay men in the position of having to go out with these cruising areas to find a partner and then when they do that because you know you can't use the internet there are no newspapers that you know advertise gay bars they raid the gay bars when they go so when they go to one of these cruising places and they make a pass at a man that i'm not talking about  there because of the issue of persecution i think it's fair to say that there are a few statements and you know straight of the immigration judge's opinion that are contradicted at least in part by the record  court considered you know only in these types of cases but i say such security cases where there's not enough in the record to establish it just isn't that there's no evidence that undermines the decision in the opinion and the founded fear future past persecution so in essence whatever was said with respect to past persecution is arguably irrelevant but at the very least petitioners no longer pressing that claim here  did have in the record for example information from the international lesbian gave socialization that basically they have these laws but but if people restrict their behavior private acts they're not prosecuted against correct that's right and in some information that at least one appellate judge in the singaporean system has tossed out one of these undercover stings yeah and if i could i'd like to go through some of the record evidence that i think could never require this court to conclude that a reasonable person must have said that the petitioner as it was founded fear for future past persecution in august took through them state department report country report two thousand and two singapore general we respect human rights that's administrative record one thirty seven and the only place where the state department mentions homosexuality since homosexuality singapore is worth to a first amendment organizational right there's no claim in the state department report that singapore is targeting homosexuals you know that you know just you know they don't get off but the state department often does when there is such evidence of gay travel club dot com a statement about travelling to singapore there's a document petition or a lie down put in the record ministry of record two sixty three this is gay travel club and what they're telling people is is it safe to travel places and when you travel there what should you worry about singapore policy is to quote live and let live senior minister was quoted as saying that section three seventy seven one of the two conoco provisions is not used to prosecute consenting adults and another minister is quoted as saying whether t first there's no record evidence from what i can tell that mere cruising and being caught for cruising results in something like killing or something beyond is from nation harassment that's the first point  i don't think this quarter's should be prepared to say that particular people have a particular right how they go about meeting other people what's clear is that in singapore f have a private homo sexual relationship you can have a homo sexual relationship that's public so long as you have sex in private and you will not be persecuted that is clear and so what petitioner can do you can go back to singapore he can be an openly gay man so long as he doesn't cruise he can have a homo sexual relationship have sex in private and there's no record evidence to suggest that if he does those things but so long as he doesn't cruise he won't be persecuted  e document world legal well legal survey which again prepared by the international lesbian and gay rights association says section three seventy seven of the penal code is applied mostly non consent nonconsensual heterosexual cases and section three seventy seven is quote used to convict same sex acts in public settings settings such as in a parked car and open space parks administrative finally the report of the bureau of citizen and immigration services this is in an administrative record three sixty one the treatment of homosexuals court has improved end quote and goes on to say at three sixty one the owners of nightclubs not patrons of night clubs but actually owners of night clubs that cater to gays have not been subjected to open harassment so again i'll go back to my point before and that is to say the petitioner is free it's clear from the record but at the very least given the standard of review a reasonable fact finder would not be compelled to find the contrary the petitioner is free to go back to singapore he's free to have a homo sexual relationship he's free to engage in homosexual acts in private the only thing that petitioners now are lying on is petitioners inability to prove because the record evidence i just read to you was that as a general matter the police are not targeting even gay clubs given the totality of the record evidence your honor i simply do not believe i absolutely agree that this court can't dictate the result unless the evidence is so compelling that no reasonable person could fail to agree with the board that's not my point my point is simply that before we even review for substantial evidence we need to make sure that the agencies concern the evidence this court has an important role in ensuring that the immigration judges actually consider the evidence it's not appropriate for this court we were reviewing the evidence in the first instance and essentially that's what the government's asking that you do the immigration judge ignored the evidence he said three times that there's no evidence for certain propositions where there's plenty of evidence and now the government's coming in and saying well despite the fact the judge the fact finder was obliged to make a determination in the first