mr doe's petition is not moot because this court can grant him effective relief it can grant his petition for a view on the merits in order that he be returned to the united states the supreme court made clear and can that when congress amended the immigration laws in one thousand nine hundred six it decided to allow non citizens to litigate petitions for review from outside the united states the government's assertion that mr doe's petition is moot is directly contrary to and ken where the supreme court stated that non citizens who are removed can quote pursue their petitions for a view and those who prevail can be afforded effective relief by facilitation of their return along with the restoration of the immigration status they had upon increase his chances of being allowed to return to the united states here the answer to the moon next question is simple as the court can increase the likelihood that mr joe will be returned to the united states in one of two ways either it can gran petition or cat in order his return or the court can remain to be i e to redo its cap decision which could result in petitioner bring being brought back because this court's decision could result in his return the petition i unless the court has questions at this stage on that yes i'd like to move to the merits the court should find that the i j a and v i i decisions denying petitioner protection under the convention against torture are not supported by substantial evidence this is a case where and by reviewing the more than seven hundred pages of evidence the court can read only one conclusion that petitioner met the standard to be granted kept the record clearly shows that petitioner is likely to be tortured in mexico by members of his own family and the drug cartel or individuals who would harm him and his families or the cartels behest petitioner is likely to be targeted because he acted as an informant and abandon his perceived duty to the cartel he is additionally independently at risk because his father also crossed the cartel and he would be violently punished for his father's actions as two of his brothers already were at least twelve members of his family have been murdered or disappeared in mexico and all of his remaining immediate family members including his father and siblings fled mexico and two thousand and twelve under threat of death the record contains ample evidence of pervasive corruption in mexico including petitions own family i found that the expert evidence merely showed that the government was absent and we talk on but that's completely contrary to the record the record contains numerous documented instances in country conditions in the expert report of mexican government officials directly participating in or setting up or otherwise condoning extra judicial acts of torture on behalf of the cartel so the expert report  at a r four eighty six to ninety four ninety four four fifty four all discussed corruption expert testimony at a r three twelve three nineteen there are articles from objective and reputable news outlets like the washington post foreign affairs the new york times that talk for example specifically about the overlapping cartels and militias as well as government corruption specifically in the truck on which is really what his claim centered on those are all gender roles so i suppose every country has a certain level of corruption is there any evidence of the record  well stating that his own uncle who he fears is in the cartel but also has connections to corrupt government officials and the expert testified about why that she thinks that's plausible  his connections to the government but this court you know precedent and under moderate all doesn't require that he identify you know the specific individual who is likely to acquiesce to his torture but he can establish he in mexico he's been moving around he's terrified to be there he wants to come back and is eager to come back to the protection of the united states so he has avoided harm by being in hiding but the question before this court is whether the agency erred on the record here so you know what has happened subsequent to the closing of the record is and before the court if the government wanted to introduce evidence about that they'd need to do a motion to reopen to introduce new evidence and mr joe would submit his own evidence establishing why he was able to avoid torture and why that doesn't mean that he still can't meet his burden under the cap let me ask you is it is your position that the evidence in the record comp agreement of can't really or is your position that there was a legal error in the record and it needs to go back to the be right so that because i understood you to be saying first that the that the i g improperly disregarded the testimony of the expert yes committed legal here and if it's legal here there would just be you know go back and give proper consideration to the to the experts right so i don't what is right so probably you're going to yes so our primary argument your honor is that the court excuse me that the agency decision is not supported by substantial evidence and that on this record no reasonable fact finder could find that doesn't meet the standard for cats but in the alternative there are numerous legal errors that the agency made that we think require any of them would require a remain and so we do think that the evidence is is sufficient and that to remain and to have the agency redo their top decision is not necessary but we do think that's available if the court doesn't agree with a substantial evidence argument i'd like to focus on the three most egregious errors that the agency made the treatment of the expert the  acquiescence finding and also ignoring evidence of the petitioners family based claim and any of those again we i think requires a remained to the agency so as to the first error the i j a failed to provide a reason to basis for ignoring the experts conclusion i just are free to give diminished weight to evidence but they must provide a legitimate reason to do so here the i j a disparage the expert simply because she gave her opinion on factual questions before the court regarding the likelihood that mr joe would be harmed in mexico but giving such an opinion is precisely what experts the i j a claims that the expert had provided no verifiable basis for her conclusions but this is completely belied by the record in essence the i g treated the expert's report as though it were missing the twenty pages between the introduction and the conclusion where she explains in great detail how she formed her opinion as in this court's decision and kohl here the i j a stated rationale for rejecting the expert's opinion is unsupported by the record and the agency's decision cannot stand addressed this a little bit in terms of the evidence and the record of corruption largely the experts evidence was really dispositive on this and vijay essentially completely ignored the experts evidence which was very it's so i read the decision as essentially giving no weight i mean he certainly acknowledges it and he discusses a couple of parts of her report and testimony in order to say he doesn't find them  persuasive but he really doesn't so yeah when he says he doesn't i find it persuasive because she would just say anything that the respondent or the petitioner needed to have said i it seems as though he essentially disregards it entirely but even if he were to give diminish if the court were to find that he gave you know diminished weight to it he can't even do that based on the reason he gave which was essentially a speculative reason that she would have you know he doesn't think she's biased or she would have said anything and that's just not you know in order for him to disregard the evidence or even to give it diminish weight he needs to provide a legitimate reason that this court can review  i want to briefly touch just on the third issue of the i j completely ignoring evidence of petitioners claim that he faces an independent risk of torture based on his family's past transgressions against the cartel  this failure to consider that claim entirely violates the regulatory command that the agency consider all evidence relevant to the possibility of future torture as well as this court's precedent and that cat claims must be considered never challenged his status as a grid felon for two drug trafficking convictions of methamphetamine and marijuana and this is all about really this the only relief he ever removal proceedings he was in streamlined proceedings which means you know he he was on he was he was going to be removed unless they could defer that removal under the convention against torture that's the first that's the first thing i want to emphasize is the nature of his relief that he was seeking in this case kept the for all it's fairly limited he he was inadmissible he was and is not somebody who can be read second to be returned back to an l p r status or some sort of status that he would have he would he particular case there was evidence that the petitioner went to g h us and said because he was detained as he was properly detained awaiting the determination by the board of immigration appeals and whether to his to deny his his appeal or not and apparently what he indicated was i don't want to be detained anymore i want to be i want my removal order executer initially he said i don't want to pursue the f officer was that he'd requested to be essentially released and he didn't want to pursue the board determination the board decision and after that occurred before he would could you know before whatever was worked out that he would be removed from the united states it was determined the board released their decision issued their decision in late february so this situation is a little bit unique in that  requests to voluntarily execute his removal order and is in fact removed prior to the time that his petition for review was filed and that's those are the only distinctions and there's nothing we don't just bute th american is good law and we don't dispute that the petition that under the ice return policy that certainly anybody who who is prevails on their petition for review when their position denied his but his appeal there had been some communication between counsel and the local officer that's right that's correct and finally reached the point where counsel said well there's nothing in place that stops him from being removed that right after there was some the only sort of confusion or disconnect between the facts that are in the declaration from the the removal officers and petitioners counsel is that one issue is the dia just was of the opinion or what they stated in their affidavit was that petitioners counsel indicated that they would not be filing a petition for review of the board's decision and four days after that the petition i believe is four days four days after that the petitioner was removed to mexico and there was no stay filed but roughly up to three weeks later the petition for you was filed i don't i don't know that that really matters because the only part that really matters for our case is if first of all we're arguing that the entire removal of petitioner started from his request to have his removal order executed and second yeah but i gather from that that if she had said we're filing a petition for review  that i assume he would not be right i don't know that for certain obviously but i would soon that that was the process that d h s was going through with consulting with counsel for him to share in that process before i don't think as as happens if somebody is removed when there is a stay filed or there's something like that those individuals can be brought back and they frequently are if it's even given the you know given the situation isn't there some relief that could be granted to him  is only trying to get a cat to for all very similar situation and the court that's where the court asked the government hey this individuals and admissible what you know is what can we give this person if this person other than the person can be brought back if that's the only issue and bill said american and the government said in that case well under the ice policy this individual could be brought back if they are successful on their petition for it would that's possible here to through that is correct  only the only distinction that we make and it i understand it's a very narrow it's a very narrow distinction is that he was removed prior to the founding of the petition for if you want to dress the merits yes your honor i'll move on to the cat claim and we argued that  the agency substantial evidence supports the agency's determination that just there did not meet his burden for a cat deferral in this case the first thing i would i would address is during the during the immigration judge's decision you noted for time and time and time again that all of petitioners claim is essentially based on speculation of this event happening or this event could happen or this can that can happen the crux of his claim is that he was he was dealing methamphetamine he got caught and in the process of whatever guilty plea was going on he agreed to assist the san jose police in prosecution of other people were within his cartel or that whatever he was associated with in their in their prosecutions so he agreed and he apparently gave information about a cousin who has an uncle who is apparently involved with the cartel in mexico so that's the crux of his entire cases because i basically was an informant against one of my family members who's a cousin that my family's going to kill me when i get back to during during the proceedings that would the petitioner be tortured because when he was arrested he had roughly ten thousand dollars worth of methamphetamine that was seized by police so the question is will do you know have a debt with the cartel and what was argued by particular target by petitioners oh because he has a debt with the cartel he's going to be tortured that's the way that that's where the cartels work and that's what the experts testified to but as immigration noted first of all petitioners counter to what the expert said the petitioner testified that he didn't really have a debt at this time with the cards with the cartel members because they told him they said don't worry about it and they asked why why would the cartel tell you not to worry about this ten thousand dollars he said well because i'm family sharkey's well you know time over time that may change and they expect him to work for the cartel the work that money off but that's different than saying he's go tortured because he has a ten thousand dollar debt with with the cartel also he frequently when he there was questions coming up was do you are you aware of this individual or this family member that you were an inform against the other family member so he was asked did she lay ever find out that you wouldn't you informed on it and he testified he just lied before the i j no at this moment no he hasn't that's on a r one also came up in the the the context of relocation he was testifying that he couldn't live elsewhere in mexico and was asked how do you know that the secret of the sequence of events would occur that wouldn't allow you to move elsewhere in mexico and avoid torture he was saying that well all the police in mexico are on the same radio frequency and they all communicate with each other so if i get pulled over they may find out who i am and communicate that back to the to the authorities back in my hometown but when it really came down to it he didn't really have an explanation for how he would know that he testified i don't know that for sure that the sequence of events would occur with regard to relocation and while i'm on the topic of he'd have to cut off ties with this family obviously because his family are drug cartel members and possibly would retaliate against him for for the uniform and against another family member but she didn't say it was impossible or that something that could not occur and so we would also add that the possibility relocation was properly considered by the agency in determining that it just started didn't meet its burden for cat protection also he testified on but he testified he admitted that his uncle doesn't at that time he doesn't have any reason to believe that he knew that he had had provided information to the san jose police so in his fathers and also the other thing that he says that his family's in danger from other family you know other family members but he testified his father has been targeted by the young cole and whatnot but his father is decoration doesn't say anything about being threatened substantial evidence and also acquiescence of the governor of a government official the there's no evidence there's no direct evidence at all that the government in this case would seek out and torture petitioner or that they would act coal has possibly has ties with the i believe it was the marines and the army in the town that he was he was from but i think the immigration judge determined based on the facts that that's not really supported by the record and in making that determination that the government wouldn't act we have in this case also considered country evidence and the experts testimony as well  finding that mexico is currently undergoing a war between law enforcement where there are certainly corrupt law enforcement and there's certainly corrupt government but there's also those who fight the cartels and so you have the fact that there's this ongoing battle between that means that doesn't necessarily mean that the government is winning that war but that's not the standard that's not what this is that's not really what we look at we look at whether or not the government  that's distinct first of all because as the government conceded that was the situation and said mark him right that was someone who had an administrative removal order who was just count challenging captive for all exactly like this case and that wasn't found to be moot and also the statute eight u fifty two a four specifically provides for judicial review of cat claims but it must be brought to the a petition for a view of a removal order so by challenging caps you are challenging or remove all order as to the point  about petitioner voluntarily requesting removal so the the evidence on the record the government submitted that he told his i thought officer that he wanted to be deported before the b i a decision was issued is totally irrelevant to the issues before this court the petitioner did not actually withdraw his b i appeal he did not follow through on that he talked to counsel and decided not to do that and i was to  that the order can be executed which is completely consistent with the statute the statute as interpreted by the supreme court and ken says that individuals can pursue a petition for review from abroad so it's within his right to file within the thirty days even if he's outside the united states the government counsel said that the only distinction between this case and said morrow keen is that the removal here happened before the petition for review was filed which is factually accurate but i just cannot make a difference because congress gave thirty days to file a petition for review and the fact that i says return policy apparently makes that distinction doesn't matter because the you know ice needs to comply with the law and the contours of their return policy don't make a difference as to move this before this court because the court can provide a remedy just as was done and just as the court found until said marroquin there they happened to have decided the case on the ice policy because both parties conceded that the individual is covered by the ice return policy here where that's not the case the court can simply  order overturned on the merits as the court pointed out this claim is not you know that unique this informant type claim from mexico has been brought several times it's that rejected the board saying very similarly to here that it was speculative that the petitioner would be harmed based on both the debt and based on his informant work where the board had said there well there's no relocation determination was also not supported by substantial evidence so thank your honour's i just finally wanted to note as the case is under seal that we would request that any decision on the merits be kept under seal due to his petitioners concerns about his identity and safety thank