the morning your honor may please the court david l ross on behalf of the petitioner your honour's if i make address a question to the court before i begin that is permissible certainly this program that you have this pilot program this is something that will be in consultation with the bar or is this something that is totally court and initiated that well we're still in such a pilot program we don't know where we are who we will consult with or what we will do we are in contact with the immigration thank you very much case revolves around really the issue of what is the standard of proof in an asylum case not withstanding everything that has been said by the responded the class of this case a very simple you have a woman who was raped and beaten forcible entry into her house her husband was fired from his job she was unable to obtain a transfer of  professor from the university of southern california who was recognized in the field of history and social aspects in armenia and turkey and also the united states state department country reports all confirm that these things do happen in armenia well that credibility yes credibility is an important factor but it's how you determine the credibility that make the decision in this case after you have all of this evidence and you have in addition a verification from the hospital that she was raped and had a miscarriage as a result of her rape the immigration judg case made a determination truly and solely based on only one fact the testimony of an expert witness from the immigration service who works with document authentication that the birth identification only the court made a determination that based on this expert's opinion the document had in some way been altered although this expert could not testify that the alteration of this document involved the ethnicity or mixed race of the individual but can only testify that he could specifically state that one letter was changed although he did testify that it appeared th was a chemical alteration of the document on the entire second page now the question is after hearing the testimony of the two witnesses after hearing the experts testimony after having a letter from the hospital confirming she was raped is the judge's reasoning that there is a lack of credibility specific in cogent an effort to meet the test so that this particular non credibility finding should stand and it is respectfully submitted to this court that that is insufficient to vitiate the evidence that was submitted in the record furthermore the evidence in the record indicates that the rape was perpetrated by government record that it was reported to the police and the police refused to investigate now all of that evidence is that minute and yet the immigration judge finds that because of this expert's testimony that the certificate birth certificate may have been altered was sufficient to substantially negate all of the testimony that was presented to the court which was on contested by the government and the government did not call the alien respond petitioner in this case to testify and ask specifically did you or did you not alter the birth certificate that was never addressed in the hearing itself so what we really have here is an issue of what is the standard of proof now we obtain her asylum based on her ethnic origin in fact the government admits in their brief at page twenty nine that the sisters asylum grant was not based on the fact that she made a claim of mixed heritage it was based on  been presented based on the testimony alone of this particular individual without even her husband testifying without the hospital records you could have had a finding that asylum should have been truthful certificate but my argument to that your honor is that even had the certificate been found to be in itself fraudulent that would not have been necessarily a basis for denying a standard stand your argument you have used your time thank you good morning your honor is made please the court my name is carolyn picard and i represent the attorney general of the united states in this case as the court has noted in questioning my opposing counsel the crux of this and corroborative evidence if available should be provided in this case the government's expert testified that there were significant alterations of the birth certificate as noted by the  the claim was not that her claim was not credible this is not one of those cases where they fraudulent document that was used was merely some kind of a border crossing card or something in order to from our from a place of alleged persecution but this document went to the heart of the petitioners claim she claims persecution on the basis of her ethnicity because of her mixed parentage between her mother's turkish ethnicity and her father's armenian nationality when that document was found to be fraudulent it became incumbent upon the petitioner to provide some kind of explanation or corroborative evidence to explain that as none was forthcoming in this case the immigration judge just finding that that this claim was not credible on the basis of that document was perfectly well supported supported by substantial evidence is that the end of it for that is this birth certificate she could have had her sister come and testify her sister could have provided nasser david there could have been a statement from her mother are something like that and there was absolutely nothing so the only evidence that the immigration judge had to go on since find that these acts which are quick are alleged to have occurred at current on the basis of any of our they protected ground was a birth certificate once that was determined to be fraudulent then the immigration judge would have no basis upon make is is in deep trouble most of the cloth yes through the petitioners expert the professor from u s c and the state department report to relate the fact that there is a history of hostility that was found to be fraudulent and there was no other corroborated evidence other to explain that so as far as this record goes then then her claim that the immigration judge was justified in finding that her claim was not credible