good morning may it please the court my name is peter hurtado i'm representing mr and mrs conway and the issue before the court from our perspective is whether substantial evidence supports the finding that the petitioners had not demonstrated a nexus to a protected ground that is the question is whether people who report or the group people who report the criminal activities of gangs to police should be  whether they actively cooperate or not whether they're designated as protected witnesses or not whether they had any direct reason to think that they were separated out for that reason correct was discussed in the previous case in the previous case we would be excluded would be requesting effectively the extension of enrquez to include go beyond just court witnesses to say  and we see it a lot in immigration court which is not relevant today but in this particular case that what would that's what would be required to grant this case would be to extend enrquez beyond well beyond simply i was listening to the previous case about witness protection and things like that that have unpublished decisions explicitly decided not to go there and you heard me mention one you may know i don't know if it's in your brief escobar opinion from two thousand and eighteen it was a divided opinion but the majority did say reporting being a complain it doesn't fit right i'm not i did not read that case but i was listening i found an unpublished case well i'm published doesn't really help us does it doesn't  you is the logic of those decisions because the th circuit's been clearly struggling with whether extended or not in the logic of the unpublished decisions joost can you discern anything persuasive that you would offer to us as to why we should extend night circuit law yes so it's very specific this is not a general opposition to gangs this is not a general generally being pro law and order this is the civic did you report you have a police report what is the evidence if any in this record that in guatemala in society people who have filed a police report are recognised as a distinctive social right the two thousand and fourteen report that's in the record doesn't specifically come out and say there is a group of people who have reported there is a mention in the about in a sexual orientation context about a lack of trust discourage victims from filing complaint it doesn't exactly say that there is a group of  i don't have and he do with you anymore that's what the girlfriend said essentially nothing like that is here right in this in this record we have a police report medical and police report and medical so and we have any connection to actual testified that only his family and friends were aware of that as far as he knew but maybe they must have found out somehow but that seems a far cry from establishing social stink to have no us well i i would argue that the fact that a two thousand and seventeen decision here is so limited in scope it's only about the social group it doesn't go into why whether a lot of time has gone by or whether there was a connection between the two incidents it's simply your proposed group is not so bright and if that that's a sufficient ground for decision if it's correct is it not could you said if you said you know my social group is people with you know red absolutely so you are correct so we see this where judges in the board will make decisions on a number of issues as and here they stopped with well here they stop with so if they are right about that one we deny th petition if they were wrong about that we would send it back you could send it back and say you need to extend and rica's beyond this and you can either say we want it because it's all about whether this record supports or requires a conclusion that the social group of the kind you're asking us to recognize that's right so the question is does it comply with the attorney general when they are saying in matter of a b that it cannot be defined has to exist independently of the harm does it require does it comply with the tourney general under l e a where it's immutable particular and socially distinct  the big problem personally that i'm having because it's definable you know people who file police reports when i don't see just speaking for myself as evidence in this record that that's a socially distinct group that's recognized as a social group that's right that is the big issue in my opinion as well whether whether society will perceive this group now we've seen other groups we've seen other groups that the court has found  has been recognized by society certain families sexual orientation former status or occupation so it would just be frankly a matter of the court taking that next step and saying that this is a group that we believe society yes b but based on what there has to be evidence doesn't there of that that would permit if not require i mean our standard of review is that we would have to find the record would require us to determine that that was an error that there is a social distinctiveness and are you know we can't just say well it seems a lot like those other things and so we want to do it so i guess i'm just struggling with what evidence in this you know either know about or respond to people who have filed police reports right so we would argue that other things that you've said things like former association or former occupation things like family these are things that people don't just know by walking down the street these are things now once claiming that it's walking down the street we understand that that that that's common we're not talking about walking down the street the question is whether are there ends any st of all is this a fact question or a legal question or both i think it's a pure legal question facts but i settle but there needs to be facts from which one can make a legal general recognition that this is a group you know you can discourage people from drinking pepsi or something but it doesn't make them a social right and in this case we're asking for a leap and this is when when our country report discusses victims from who may or may not file complaints that gives us an argument that there is a group of people out there even while arguments but the question is why we should accept them and i mean there is obviously a huge slippery slope here the whole concept is somewhat amorphous and you know i mean i just say again to talk about the last case when they wanted to go this far and you want to go that far and we need but without a record right i can't point to anything specific in the record that would say that there's a society would in this record that would say that society recognizes this group what i can say is that there are two police reports filed i don't i'm not aware that police reports are public or not if that's something that will make this is probably not ordinarily they're not i mean it would be a strange thing if they were right well certainly in this country one can order a police report you don't have to be a party to it and it's certainly out there that these police reports exist so i don't know if it's the same in guatemala i can't speak to that however that would be what i would point to as evidence that society would recognize that you have a agency a government there that has published something or has a reporting i'm going to have anything in their record that people who are there were reports at the police event aside from the distinct social group that there are likely to be the subject of gang violence you have that no again i would only point to the human rights two thousand and fourteen that talks about institutional corruption particularly with the police things like that would say that there are groups of people who suffer from who would be victim to those things but no i don't have anything in the record that would say there is something that says there are critical reports of killing of witnesses an where they had a witness protection program and people who were testifying and things like that this case is just two reports where people would go and say i filed a police report we've seen this in a totally unrelated context here with the where in order to get immigration status one would have to show that you filed a police report with a victim you assisted and that program is designed to help promote cooperation with the police so in terms of opening a floodgate the court mentioned that  the previous case and also here certainly finding that the group of people who have reported gang violence certainly does promote a certain rule of law it would be good public policy i don't know if that's i couldn't find a case that said that that was evidence they submit it always helps me when i'm listening to the government is is you tell us what evidence what evidence would be sufficient to make someone who reports gang violence sufficiently socially distinctive when would you significant evidence showing that those people were singled out and protected by salvadoran society it was evidence paper evidence and this case we have nothing true and does seem we did remain for you to look into this i assumed paper evidence and here it doesn't seem like there is but that could come in the form of country reports that could come in the form of official document in the case that a person was a protected reporting witness well so for example the last  argument we just went through we talked about the evidence quite a bit what did it show that show this society recognize this group or set them apart did the witness protection laws protect that individual or not in order to have indications this group is set aside we had to look at the evidence today what he said and here there is nothing there's no evidence so we can't say that the if if we were to rule that this this fellow was in his wife if they were within a group with that create a split with any other circuit doesn't in the end it doesn't make sense that the these definitional questions one should have the enter mine and others you have to have a set of facts once you have those facts whether that ends up to a  minds could differ over what that evidence says society recognise so in a sense that statement that there is no evidence is a factual finding about the record so when they say there is no evidence of an essential element then the conclusion is a legal conclusion that the proposed social group is not while that's kind of how they state it but if they're wrong about there is no evidence that's factual in nature if there are you know five reports and they've said there's no evidence that's the factual piece and then the conclusion whether it's ryan miller not viable follows from that read has also particularity at two different prongs of this test that meet together to define a particular social at least in this case it does border only talked about social distinction and that's what the remainder was for my oversimplifying when i focus on distinctiveness to say well people that call that's pretty quite secret no one knows if you call nine hundred and eleven or very few people that the last case had much more going on and i case that legally as a last case we had an anonymous police report and that's why when they are trying to fit a case you don't get your argument as to this case is there's none of that he's squarely yeah we're not going to declare it in this case but that would be an issue  story yes correct one last thing is that in terms of the question of why we don't have any case law reporting case i guess one question is should if we agree with you in this case should we have a published opinion so we can at least get this over with it's what would i guess what so it's questions of about recognizing this not you know i'm sure we have had other apparently in unpublished opinions we have come to think inclusion that your argument for here on the other hand if you're arguing that it's all completely fact specific then we should just just ideas on memory and dispositions and never have a published opinion because it's always going to depend on the on the record on the record in the country i mean what's socially distinct may not be the same as you know russia or somewhere else correct and that is why and make history of us is not the thank you is to follow up on what was just stated again  to extend enrquez beyond some court witnesses all the way to people who have filed police reports would be would be appropriate in the sense that this is a group of that puts them in a group of people a protected group much like some of the other protected group that have been decided the one thing you haven't noted is that my understanding is you're not talking about anybody allows a quick please report you're only talking about people file police reports against gangs that's right and this one it is true that all of the reports here even though you're high and was kind of vague about how we knew there are gangs the reports all say that there were ga correct so this may be specific about gangs and that's why i mentioned before public policy although this is not a policy question certainly this promotes well and also narrows the group somewhat because it means they have to report that it was a gang rather than just report and it turns out to be again correct and we can see all kinds of potential extensions with domestic violence and other types of violence but this specific case is about gangs