good morning honors and may please the court william rounds on the half of the petitioner and i'd like to reserve two minutes for rebuttal at the end this case concerns a young man who was attacked several times in india because of his membership in participation with a political party the b a p following the third attack he fled india came to the united states was detained at the border and then sought asylum in other relief essentially the two major errors that the immigration judge and the b i a made in this case first the immigration judge made an adverse credibility determination but that determination was not based on substantial evidence  it was essentially because a lack of corroboration which the judge did not put the petitioner on notice of nor did he give him the opportunity to explain or to produce the evidence required then it to be ira the petitioner attempted to produce that evidence the evidence that the immigration judge specifically had looked for but the b i i then moved the goalpost they said oh there are other conditions as well therefore we're denying what they considered the motion to remain and when they in fact should have remanded the case back to the immigration judge to consider the new evidence in terms of the adverse credibility  give a continuance or not to provide corroboration of the petitioner then did provide some corroborating evidence which was a letter from his father to letters from a doctor in india however it wasn't until after the close of the evidence that the immigration judge specifically identified the problems with that evidence and then essentially discount to them and gave them zero weight so it wasn't until that point that the immigration judge said if you have other specific evidence i think the with immigration judge said was evidence of any attacks on the petitioner and then evidence that congress party people attacked b g p in general so those two things which were the corroborating evidence of the immigration judge was requiring were not mentioned were not told to the petitioner until after the close of evidence so what that essentially means is for that the lack of corroboration that the judge relied on in his adverse credibility determination there was no notice to the petitioner until after the close of evidence which he should have been put on notice and at least had the opportunity to explain it if not to get more evidence to corroborate which eventually was able to get because that is what he submitted to the ira which was evidence corroborating that he had been attacked other letters from family members that were aware of it but also that evidence that there was evidence that the j p members were attacked in india in general now the problem right there i think the problem of the ira and i j found is that in this particular area in india the beach it had to be j p were there was a controlling party right right that however goes to the cat claim which is much farther downstream then the adverse credibility germination which is what is what was at issue here because with the adverse credibility determination the elements for the convention as torture claim do not matter that the asylum all the other relief would was denied based on the at adverse credibility which the ability to read locate had nothing to do with the adverse credibility with the b i a did was they took the immigration judges words on the record that the members of this party were targeted right correct and that was the lack of corroboration of the judge found he said i hear your testimony however there's no evidence in the country reports or the other evidence that was  that was given zero weight do you have any evidence in any state department country reports about targeting b j p i'm not aware of that being the in the country reports that would be something outside of the record of the court however that is what should be remanded to the immigration judge to determine if there is evidence in any country reports because there was evidence in at least news articles that were submitted to the be i a s as far as the new evidence in the motion to remount and so i think that with the immigration judge having the opportunity to consider that new evidence now that the petitioners had notice and an opportunity to provide it i think that that new evidence could be introduced to the immigration judge as should be evidence now that the petitioner has had notice and an opportunity to provide it if the immigration judge is then able to look at the evidence and the corroboration and say either way yes or no that he was he a credible or not credible  affect all of the other relief because the denial of the asylum and the other relief was based almost entirely on this lack of credibility that was found for the petitioner if there is other evidence that may be available for the immigration judge that he may need at the end of testimony again he would need to put the petition on notice and give him an opportunity to either explain why it's not available or to produce that evidence  if and even going to the the evidence that the judge gave no weight i think that the judge made a mistake there because there's really no cogent reason for him to have discounted  away the evidence particularly the letters from the doctor the judge's reasons reasons for giving that in no way seem to really make much sense his reasons were well it's the same doctor signed on the same day but the letters are different but there's nothing about providing different letters that would necessarily make the case or or make the letters have zero weight and it's certainly possible for an individual to write two separate letters and provide them on the same day so i don't think that the immigration judge was able to articulate cogent reasons for giving those letters no weight and so i think the immigration judge probably should have considered those letters anyway but even if even assuming for the sake of argument that those letters immigration judge should have given him the opportunity to corroborate with more in the b i a should have remanded it when they saw that there was more evidence available or even just to give the petition of the the opportunity to get that evidence the immigration judge can consider it again and that the evidence you then submitted to the b o j yes that would be there was several articles and a newspaper articles that were submitted to  da in addition there was letters from other family members but i going to the articles from the newspapers that were submitted those go directly to what the immigration judge had asked for which is evidence that the j p members are attacked in general and that's exactly what they showed they showed bombings and attacks of b j p p headquarters and other members of the party well to be i rejected that evidence because it was available to time but not timely filed how do you respond to that well first of all the petition was not given notice or an opportunity to respond to that but also that's a very very similar to the case the facts of the case but to write which was decided by this court in two thousand sixteen they had the exact same issue where the evidence that was then submitted to the b a to corroborate the be a denied it in the bottom right case because well this evidence was available at the time of the merits hearing but you didn't that was not sufficient because the petitioner in that case and in this case were not put on notice and given an opportunity to provide that evidence or is or i would like to know your case from your grief we did provide it in our twenty eight j letter and that was decided after the briefing was was completed when determining that that the applicant failed to meet his burden to show that he is a credible witness in this case the agency relied on the implausibility of his account when compared to the record evidence of relevant country conditions that there was no record evidence that that other members of the b j p were being attacked based on their membership in the p g p in gujarat and and based on the fact that the j p controls law and order within their whole within their state the agency found that it was impossible but petitioner would then have been attacked repeatedly based on his membership in the b to be j p and that the police would then detain him beat him and threaten to kill him if he didn't leave india and leave the b j p this is the agency found that that that account in comparison to the record evidence of country conditions was impossible now p and at that point the immigration judge stops and says well that's what i'm trying to understand sir why is anyone interested in you and at that point petitioner responded because i was covert and i was upcoming in around election time i used to try to break the congress party votes that's why they beat me now the agency addressed petitioner's response but found that his excuse for the implausibility was simply not possible because there was no record of events that where he addresses several cases that apply this court's finding and ren ren asks that that the that the applicant be given an opportunity to respond  provide more evidence if if the immigration judge requires more corroboration for his account inventory this court said that we should be looking at a two step process first we have to decide whether or not substantial evidence if we do get to that second step and this court does find that that the record compels reversal of that implausibility finding then we would say that while rennes specific  procedure for her notifying the ele and after testimony and that he that they are going to require more corroboration and then continuing the hearing in order to allow him to to supply that that that that more that expert crop aeration that's that specific process described in rent was not followed to the lot to the letter in this case however i will page one fifty nine to one to one sixty in the record petition or request additional time to file more documents related to the crime aeration of of his account of having been attacked three times in india which the immigration then provides at that point the immigration judge on page one sixty two notes to petitioner that there is no evidence other than the country report regarding the background country conditions for his claim and and  petitioners counsel that more evidence should be should be filed then you see on page one sixty three the immigration judge then it is she is an explicit warning to petitioner stating that corroboration is re quired in his case and that is it even if he were to otherwise produce credible testimony that a lack of corroboration could result in undone i love his claim so he has given that warning filing deadline in order to produce extra evidence and then he filed a motion to expect excuse the late filing of his documents both of which were granted by the immigration judge in order to allow him to corroborate his claim finally  after the immigration judge didn't did deny his claim petitioner did submit additional evidence however that evidence simply does not address the basic in possibility of his claim the the affidavits that he filed predated his hearing so they could have been filed at that point but the but the more important point to the in possibility is that the three articles that he neither of which dealt with the cut the conditions in gujarat a state that was controlled by the b j p and then a third article relates to criminal activities committed drunk men and there is no indication that they were acting with a political purpose at all so these three background and for articles that petitioner alternately produced did not did not solve the problem with with the fact that there was the evidence that he supported that motion to remount with was insufficient to remain to the to the immigration judge specifically the affidavits that petitioner filed were did predate his his his hearing now that wouldn't in  itself be enough to doom his claim had he provided sufficient explanation for why they weren't filed he did not claim ineffective assistance of counsel or claim that they were unavailable for some reason even though they had been already written so so  he provided no no explanation for for why they were not files and therefore it was proper for the board to to find they were insufficient and furthermore as i stated the other articles that he did submit were not sufficient analyze whether or not you would it would whether or not it was material to his claim however i will state that that that evidence did not relate to the background country conditions and the reason why the immigration judge had had tonight the claim was was not because there was no evidence in the record you know of the of of his of his having had these experiences because indeed he testified that he had those experiences what the immigration judge den thank you doris opposing counsel did i mention that this specific process in rand was not followed in this case and i think that's a problem because rent and such cases identify the specific process and demand case did what he could to alert the b a a to the issues and the v a ignored it and denied his his his motion what they should have done is granted the motion allow the immigration judge to listen to the new evidence to give the petitioner opportunity to explain any other missing evidence and then make his decision after the petitioner had had that opportunity but as to the general question about whether or not this party was targeted all you have are the two newspaper articles right at this point yes and there may be more testimony and how do you respond to the fact that one of them which just looks like a random incident and the other one didn't happen in the same area of the country well those random in may or may not have much weight however the other two would have more weight and the fact that they didn't happen in the petitioner state probably one of them is just about vandalism it was retaliation for treatment by one of the congress party members right right but that would still be evidence that b j p members are attacked or subject to attack and whether it's within his state or not it would be the evidence that the g p members are attacked in