do so at some point in time some corrupt members of the national police attempted to extort his father for protection money for the business despite mister his name is mister meant to take despite his concern his family members might be harmed if you refused to do so he did refuse in response to that refusal the police stated that and told him that they would close his business in kill his son m and a roadside checkpoint by some of the same police officers who had made the extortionate demands he was shot in the mag he was beaten so that his ribs were broken and he had a gun put to his head and threatened with death contemporaneous with the attack or shortly thereafter mister meant to tell his father went to what is called the justice of the peace criminal division something of that nature in honduras and made out a police report and in that police report he stated both that he had been his son had been threatened for his failure missed him a tooth a failure to pay the extortion meet the extortion demand and also that one of the police officers had told him to be followed and harassed by members of the police at that point in time missed him a do today because this business temporarily and sent his son to the united states and remove proceedings in the immigration court he applied for withholding of removal he claimed that his past mystery's for his past persecution was on account of his membership in the particular social group of his immediate family of his with mister because of his status as his father's son now to be a decision found him to be credible but it denied his application for withholding on the grounds that he did not sufficiently establish a nexus between the harm in the have quoted at length judged baron's dissent from the denial of the motion to stay steady because he has addressed all these issues in his or the issues that the agency raised and the government raised in a way quite frankly that family being a social group for the purposes of the petition but isn't there wasn't there a factual basis here based on the immigration judges assessment of credibility about whether or not there  to the actual precipitating event i don't believe that is i'm sorry judge i don't believe that is in question because the immigration judge himself in his decision stated that that this could be st of all he found mister credible but secondly he stated himself that this could very well be an act of persecution based on the family who are it might be something else but but i don't think there's any question about the  claimed it was because the rest of no one else in his family was harmed in that is easily i think answered because there's not anything in the record to show that the police knew who his family members were but we know  were at the height i'm sorry i thought when they were at the hospital the whole family the police were at the hospital as well that they were there but there's nothing in there that would show that they identified them as his immediate family well who would they thought they were it could have been anybody who could have been anyone in that room and again to two very briefly quote judge baron aside from that point judge paris and i do not see a basis for construing the nexus requirement to embrace the troubling notion that the sins of the father may be visited upon the son as long as they are not visited upon anyone else in the family and i think that i an accurate assessment of the law and he cites the cordova case for the proposition that just because other members of the family are not persecuted does not undermine his own fear of persecution yes  is the complicating factor for me here though is that it's the it is the son's connection to the business and you know at the sli we're not sitting here as a new c prius court deciding the facts ourselves but it does complicate for me this notion that you know had there been evidence that any of the other members of the family had been targeted that might mean something else but but does i s is the just the statement that you don't have to have targeting of the other family members enough to sort of overcome this business connection that the son has  at least in terms of the substantial evidence standard this you i believe judge however you you too are closing in on what is the real fundamental issue in the case and that is that and that is that the board determined that because a means to increase well well that position and that's really the fundamental ruling of the agency that would have some force if it were true but the fact of the matter is m target of the extortion he was a part of the persecution and he suffered past persecution to be sure but there is nothing in this record to even suggest that the police were trying to extort record to show that anything like that was directed to him nothing in the record to show that he resisted the accepted if we accepted your argument then would we have to say that the b a a is a matter of laws compelled in every ordinary kidnapping case to find persecution on account of family member ship knowing someone steal some of kidnaps a child or well now tell me how it's not analogous you are you're suggesting that every person who was kidnapped what would be the reason for the kidnapping suppose the police just drove up to the to this pool the nexus requirement so that would be true in virtually every kidnapping of a family member a case i don't know i wouldn't want to speculate about that judge i think every case would have to be looked at on its own facts but let me ask let me ask this question if in fact he is not he was not subject to the extortion why was he home why was he persecuted there's only one logical reason because they were trying to get to his father through him through the s and that's a critical distinction and i think that at the very least although i don't think this is a mixed motive case but at the very least it could be construed to be a mixed motives motive case they may have been looking to increase their wealth on the basis of the father but certainly certainly they were persecuting the son to influence the father to have leverage over the father and i think the case law is virtually monolithic in pattern in this case and i don't know that that would really change anything your honor if they are if his membership in the social group if his membership in that immediate family is the motive one central reason for why they are harming him s animists in this case there we're not talking about speculative harm or potential harm we're talking about broken ribs shop a gun to the head so that clearly animists in this case but as judge parents said that you know  so i don't even really i'm not really clear on the whole idea of how animus is an important factor but in any event we certainly have in this case if we need you tyler and i represent the respondent the government in this immigration case your honor is the sole issue in this case is whether substantial evidence compelled supports the agency's conclusion that mr a not carry his burden of demonstrating that he was persecuted on account of his membership and there were these are relevant and lead the government believes this essential evidence does support that conclusion and asked the court to deny the petition for review oh i'd like to fifty in the record he was specifically asked why exactly do you think you were shot by the police and reason replied to that question that he was shot because we refused to pay protection on the part of the police now that is critical because one of the other things that i think mr olson elected to mention was that the look before the agency he had two  nexus yes he had the family relationship with actually it was the family the reason r l of family but secondly it was his opinion his opinion against extortion is not a legally it's not does not political opinion was clear his father refused to pay extortion and here i'm quoting and wasn't necessarily implicated this son was necessarily implicated because he worked and lived with this father so he was necessarily implicated in his father's refusal to pay the extortion which is precisely why mister rees perella said and the immigration judge noted it in his oral statements before he issued his decision and then again in his decision the st cites testimony of the petitioner that he was shot because we we refused to pay protection to the police the state motion is not the same as system actual evidence or whether the evidence that mister owen is stressing compels the contrary conclusion to that reached by the agency but let me go in his statement and this is it page one hundred and ninety four dollars of the record he says the police threatened me saying that if i did not pay the they would kill my son now the st thing that's important to remember about that is that that's not a direct quote he is using the word is that he's obviously paraphrasing what the police officer set and mr to take to testify in this case so we don't know we were not able to ask mister t to day well specifically how did the police phrase that did they refer to your son as jose or did they just refer to him as your son we do not know that from this page of the record as you mentioned in your decision on the majority's decision on the state response it's entirely possible that the reference to the sun was simply a handy way to refer to them given the fact of question should have been which son except mister to train new which son he was talking about he knew that the police were for a man to the son that worked in the pool hall and that was seen as received the threats or who did the specific refusing of paying the extortion money because astor as mysteries testified at page one hundred and twenty five dollars of the administrative records he was in the pool hall with his father on many occasions when the police came in so they were seen together whether or not the police were physically talking to the father or not they were seen in the pool hall together that on in addition mister all and highlight a lack of evidence that the police in trying to extort the father threatened to harm anyone other than the son again this is a meaningless distinction because only his son worked at the pool hall and owen stressed the fact that there was no evidence or seemed to imply that there was no evidence in the record that the police knew that there who were who is other family members at work the reason  is a tremendous amount of evidence in the record that that is that that is not the case st his mother lived in the house attached to the pool hall with mister ruiz burrell up and mister rich to tape for thirty years secondly they other son lived next door every single one of his siblings also lived inside a cologne and his daughter lived twenty minutes away on the other is a is a point i think you  mentioned judge howard which is that his family was all around him in the hospital the morning after the shooting it is it is quite it all the stranger to like to say that there would be no way to know who those people were this is an individual who was in handcuffs according to mr aris parabolas testimony he was handcuffed to his bet with police and prosecutors in the room i highly doubt that individuals just random individuals would be allowed to be in a hospital room with a suspect who is in police custody and is handcuffed to that i'm just just for the record it was judge chaotic question that  pointed that out but i'm actually more interested in another of a judge carry out his questions which which is and distinguishing this case you'd have to change the facts of this case but what about the  kidnapping extortion attempts are or are those persecution oh well i have whether or not kidnapping itself rises to the level of persecution is of course another issue i don't mean to get technical that suggest a joint enterprise between the father in the son and the we have the dense would all be irrelevant in the kidnapping extortion of the parent case well actually using someone to get it as a as an incentive to get someone to pay extortion money or if you actually have an animist works the family and in this case there is no interest towards the shot at being accepted and and now one of the things that came up in this case was the immigration judge highlighted that one of the only things that the ship that the police ever said was when they came back around police keep by and said to the other policeman that's the one i told you about and the immigration judge very astutely said that doesn't show me anything now one of the cases we do have and you'll have to forgive me  i forget the name of it but there was a case on it in which a child was abused by family members and he was claiming that it was because of his relationship to his mother and in that case the woman and sports her family and that this child was caught up in that and that is clearly lacking i mean gratian judge pointed out the only thing we have here is a sentence where one cop says to another cop he's the one i told you about so that's not really enough to go out i have a technical question for you d the i j specifically found as to the checkpoint shooting that the evidence was a us as to whether that occurred because of the extortion or instead occurred simply because he ran the checkpoint and he concluded that the petitioner had not carried his burden of proving that it was the former he beat i e i don't think unless i missed something didn't make expressed reference to that finding of what significance is that fine need to us now on review  i think what the immigration judge was saying and this is in the record twenty six that i actually said that the motive may have been mixed but it was targeted for his refusal to be extorted but also possibly because they the police perceived him as running a roadblock the border did not specifically mention that i would say you know neither one of  those those reasons that may have been implicated in the immigration judges mine are protected grounds so i think that the fact that the board did not specifically referenced that other conceivable motivation makes any difference to this cour analysis because neither of those would be a protected ground under the statu burrell instead of working at the pool hall had been an adolescent in school and had had nothing to do with this father's business and the police officers i come up to him and said we're going to get you because you know you're in your debt terrible me and and and we hate your family and we think your family doesn't play by our rules and we're going to come you know we're going to come get your family because they are flouting the law against the police and where they were the authority in other words if you had an abyss and you also had it you also didn't have this relationship the big in fault with the actual business that w being extorted and i think that the facts that you have in this case bring it so much closer to the case that the board actually cited in its decision act we are to we end where the woman was claiming that was persecuted on account of family and the store and that this court agreed with the board that no she was being persecuted and threatened because she will work with her husband at the store  i think it's also important that again that there was no there were no threats directed towards the other individuals in the family there's no evidence in the record that they were ever harmed which brings this very close also to case recently decided by this court loads that ended in september of two thousand and twenty where the brother was threatened but none of his but his one but none of the other snedeker sisters had been threatened and the court relied on that as well as being a significant factor in finding that his family relationship was not a basis for his persecution thank you so much your honour's the government asks that court please den area in a in administrative record spanning four hundred and fifty pages the government hangs its hat on one use of the royal we b mistrial on this issue of whether or not he was subject to absorption in his testimony an affidavit mystery's varella said that the police said that they would close speaking of his father would close his business if he did not he said that the police began attempting to explore my father to protect his business though he also said that the testified that the local police prosecuted me because i am my father's son and my father refused to pay for the protection mister me to take his affidavit said i was the object of the attempted extortion police came asking me for money in exchange for protection for my business and after the attack on his son when he went to the justice of the police to file a report he stated that the police wanted to charge him for his business and the attack on his son was retaliation the critical difference distinction that makes the board's decision wrong here we're not looking to increase the wealth at the at the end by way of this through is only his fault excuse me his father the government is to just look at this town just spoke about the fact that he shared his father's opposition to extortion well i'm very confident that every single business owner in the country of honduras believes that has that same shared had any idea who was the rest of the family was and i believe judge howard is you it was your question about them all being in the hospital room together we don't have a lot of information about that but i can tell you what we do not have we do not have any evidence even in the hope in the hospital room that the that the police the corrupt police knew that that was the rest of the family and that goes to animists you can't really demonstrate animist toward people when you don't know who they are constituted past persecution so on remained he should have the benefit of the rebuttable presumption of future persecution the well founded fear future persecution based on the past persecution if there's nothing further i'll rest on my brief very well will take the case and or advisement thank you that concludes the argument in this case attorney owen and attorney tyler you should disconnect from the hearing at this time