why miss had the law in mind that deserves a remain and or seeking a reasonable fear that she should be have been approved by the immigration court for seeking a reasonable fear so that she would have been able to present her case in withholding only proceedings the question before the court today is whether substantial evidence compels a contrary conclusion to the immigration court's decision on the primary question before the court is whether mister cut the line as a member of a particular that most intrigued open it was denied based on the fact that the judge concluded that the evidence was not substantial enough to change the result of the proceeding so we submit that the evidence deadlines case but there those do not undermine her eligibility or withholding ever move all based on those different says i'm specifically her case is high profile  she submitted evidence that her and then her daughter's murders were publicized both in the printed press as well as the television she was not the case never was brought to trial nevertheless she and her husband were placed in the witness protection program in guatemala v the fact that quite a militia has a witness protection program we submitted today a motion to take judicial notice of that law and henriques revise the court relied on the salvadoran law to find that there were criminal witness says were a particular social group because of that law that provided for witness protection she and her husband made complaints about the daughter's murders in three separate locations they made a complaint with the police in the local locality with the  national public ministry office and then the office against femicide so they were actively pursuing the investigation of their daughter's murders on multiple fronts and they received t i mean that is that what the court is requesting information i have some thoughts about next says yeah i'm just trying to figure out what what do we need to decide here because i think is that you know the government i think it's the government that's membership in a particular social yes we did yes i don't know if we disagreed with the nexus finding it so i'm just trying to figure out what what is our focus right now and account of a protection around it doesn't need to even be one central ground as it is in asylum and miss cut the one month that her husband received threatening phone calls where they said that they were supposed to stop basically being members of the particular social group of witnesses in a criminal investigation were told to stop investigating or they would have to feed the same dirt that their daughters ate i mean that was one of the more graphic threats that they the line was found to be credible by the immigration judge exceeded by the asylum office and the immigration judge doesn't say anything about credibility or negative credibility finding and so one of the things  that the mayor in her town was connected with a drug cartel organization who was responsible for her daughter's murders so that does implicates the the guatemalan government  was acquiesence by public officials and you noted that she said that she thought the mayor the town had some connection to the cartels nothing more i mean that may be true but does that mean that trying to protect her and her family as opposed to acquiesce and we have seen torture or past persecution yesterday i think you make a very important point that's often brought up in  i think it would be impossible or it's incorrect to say that the entire government of wot amala is corrupt and there are certainly large facets of the government of guatemala who are not corrupt but  there are persons in the government that are corrupt and the corruption is so widespread that most of murders are not prosecuted in guatemala and in no one never knows whether when one is reporting an incident to the police whether that will be taken and back to the offenders or weapons for bribes or whether that will be taken to successful prosecution and the most common situation is that things are not prosecuted the impunity for crimes is very high and that is part of the us department of state human rights report talks about that on the corruption so while on the one hand there are there is  left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing of the government so on the one hand they are receiving assistance from the guatemalan government they are in witness protection they are frankly told to leave the country because it's not safe and if your contention is that that is that acquiescence or is that for a resignation to a warning we can no longer protect you and wouldn't claim that we are we are no longer able to protect you  of the government prong i think that's an excellent question your honor certainly turning a blind eye is the standard for whether or not someone meets t threshold for a protection of the convention and torture and if they are resigned to the fact that an investigation has been compromised i would say that would constitute turning a blind eye to see the torture instead of ask you a question of due process before your time is up here  but i mean i think the immigration judge was wrong and he said that he couldn't consider the evidence because it wouldn't have been fair to the asylum office and i said what you really should have been looking at was whether or not it was fair to mi two petitions for this court in this case the st involves d the immigration judges in current slip a negative reasonable fear determination substantial evidence supports their immigration judge's decision regarding withholding do when the police say you better leave that's or that's your claim and we have to take her word for it at this point and they said and they said you know we can't protect anymore you ought to leave the country now that's not that's that's something less than st of willful blindness or you know absolute acquiescence we're going to be part of the pocket of the cartel we see those kinds of allegations from time to time but if they've said you know  i mean in and the context here i mean there were efforts it wasn't like they were accepting of their consenting or you know turning a blind eye to it they were trying and matching some of the caseload that this court has you know disaster in rwanda a number of years ago where there's a total breakdown of the government and you have two warring tribes and we have an ethnic cleansing situation there may not be a government at the most sense that the government has become your person your persecut but if the government is help was to prevent anything i don't think that we would i don't think we would have denied those the people had kept lines sure and i mean i think that's more of a next extreme hypothetical because it was supposed to be so wide mexican government had act we have they weren't agreeing that you know law cartel was a really good idea and they could do whatever they wanted but if the government is powerless to or to to to prevent anything or to protect you surely that would satisfy  cat get requirements wouldn't well you know i don't that's i definitely have dealt with the area of long kept actually talking about like the cartels in mexico and i mean i don't think it's just that they can't necessarily control the cartels they're asked to be like kind of a affirmative breach of their duty to protect the person and i don't know if you can say there's like an affirmative breach here where they're trying to protect her and basically they say ok this is getting really bad for you so we can't really they're not they're not like turning a blind eye to what they're aware of knowledge and i think that's a little bit different than saying there acquiescent you know when you talk about especially you know you talk about affirmative in certain areas that s d i kind of conservative breach of duty and i don't know if you get that here in this context especially with this evidence i mean there there are there in a shelter or some sort of witness protection different a little bit different question and i think it's a pretty simple question but i also of i also think it may appear to be kind of a stupid question but what is going to be sure i understand i've been on the court for a long time i i don't remember seeing a reasonable fear reviews by this court until the last couple of years we always got the asylum withholding tat claims and that's the predominance of the of the immigration cases that we see if we were to decide that that  were to just agree with the i j s decision here that's not the same as disagreeing with the i j a and the b i he's decision you not in an asylum withholding cat claim that had gone through a full proceeding a letter go through and then you could make the credibility findings you have to make whatever evidence you want to converse you find her husband in the process as you consolidate the cases whatever whatever whatever the things you want to do you get a lawyer and so on it becomes a lot more formal process think here i mean earth testimony was accepted as credible or started with believe it's just that she didn't establish any nexus and i mean i think even if you look at the evidence that she submitted with a motion for opening it doesn't change the fact that there's no there's no motive of that could allow new evidence and to mean that not that might be a legal error and i just wanted to ask you about that well i guess i read that it is more if you don't think it was fair to the asylum officer and that's not i guess technically the correct way of looking at it but i mean that that at the bottom he wasn't required to accept that evidence and he didn't and like i said he did afford her the opportunity to actually think it was just money but she said there was nothing else that thank you if they are thirty five or she miss cutline testifies that she was threatened number of times by phone and told quote not to investigate her daughter's death because she would be next so that it's not a case ever been and that is the case where she's clearly being persecuted because she's pursuing an investigation regarding the cad claim i don't think that we can pick sides and in the government and say that this side of the government is helping and protecting her when it's the person who is persecuting her is a member of the government it's a mayor and he is he himself like i said he's a member of the government so i think just the fact shot the he will wear it in a car that belongs to the mayor's office and then briefly i just wanted to talk about the fact that she  matter of delhi a attorney general talks about the fact that those family and even nuclear family so did not qualify so secure because it doesn't qualify under the social distinction requirement because she was high thank everybody especially our technical support the police chief here today and so we are a church thank you