made my name is catalina garcia and i are present the petitioner in this matter i'd like to reserve two minutes for rebuttal all right the immigration judges conclusion that the petitioners credible testimony and evidence did not establish that he suffered past persecution or have a wall founded fear of future persecution was not supported by substantial evidence first in reaching such a finding the immigration judge deviated from a totality of circumstances standard of analysis that resulted in an erroneous finding the petitioner was unable to demonstrate past persecution although in her decision the immigration judge stated that neither of the two forms of harm petitioner claimed to have suffered rose to the level of persecution sufficient to warrant the grant of asylum either separately or totality of circumstances in deciding whether a finding of persecution is compelled further v i in the us the ninth circuit case from one thousand nine hundred eighty the court held that quote the key question is whether looking at the cumulative effect of all the incidence a petitioner has suffered the treatment he or she received rise to the level of persecution well was whether it's the ground decision on it but what did the record show as to why these threats came from the government if you will the reason being that where the petitioner was employed he worked for an electric company that was owned by the state and so that was right and as i recall his testimony was he assumed they must've come from the right there wasn't any direct evidence that they came from a governmental source was there correct but he and that the person who was above him the rank talked to him this is what he testified to talk to him about how we got to take some of the some of the money in this company and we got to looking for these ill gotten gains were else is it reasonable to make a conclusion that they came from from the top he does the petitioner did believe that the threats came from somebody within the organization that is what he believes they were the ones that were aware of his refusal to participate in this corruption scheme and are you saying that soon on reasonable no i'm not saying that that wasn't that that's an unreasonable belief but in this case based on all of his interactions with the people and within the organisation this was in line with the treatment he had received from them and look i want to ask your question about the that comes from this organisation a governmental threat or is it the judge the judge seems to have assumed that they did these things came from the government so i'm not sure you really need to convince us on that i'm just trying to figure out what the relationship of this entity to the government what so it's a state run electric company and i think this is why the petition found himself between a rock and a hard place because on the one hand he was essentially being asked to participate in corruption against the government of these funds while at the same time being instructed to do so by somebody he supposed was a representative of the government because they were in a position of authority within this organization so well this is a government  company right it's the only electorate come according to the testimony is the only electric company in the whole country of cambodia right correct and the government owns it so i'm not clear on whether these people w were the government being corrupt because the country parts talk about widespread government corruption or whether these people were trying to defraud or embezzle from the government either way he didn't  petitioner stated and what it was owned by the state was privately owned petitioner stated that it was state run but privately owned that's what that's what he says that's why this is what we believe this is you know he he said it was privately owned by the state granted i don't know what that means that's why i was asking that was the information that we have as well and it was set me yeah do we have any  i can't say that with certainty however that is what we were led to believe similar to the way companies are running in china it's essentially the government does have control over over most things and while this may so we better take her yeah taught reserve or time and well listen to the government's argument thank you your honors two minute let me just ask you one question yet you know what the current country reports thank you thank you thank you is harm rising to the level of persecution and a well founded fear of future persecution that for you go on can i just maybe where maybe we've engaged here your colleague in a useless dialogue there's no issue in this case i take it th whatever threats came and emotions came it cetera came from a governmental source so as to establish so if you could establish the persecution it would be on a protected ground the only reason i'm hesitating your j no findings that it wasn't that that's correct so if we found if we found that these rose to a level of persecution then we'd have to send it back for for further proceedings to determine whether it came from the government that's correct carol and that's so we don't know we  really worry about that today that's true yet in order in order to make a case based on a whistleblower status which is what this case is there are two questions that have to be answered affirmatively number one to establish whistleblower status and number two them on those places so can you go back to the three we got with the smile but i'm sorry ninety five not too long ago we've got let's let's look at the evidence here and tell us why why you think it doesn't rise to have we've got death threats yes rather seem serious although they only i understand they only occur on one day he's demoted correct correct and there's a third thing is they're not the those are the those are the two main contentions from petitioner and to take them in turn three death threats well he was also accused of being a member i guess of the opposition party that true you know ok so put those three things together and to take them in turn you're on of the three threats they occurred over the course and one more thing was may of two thousand and four they were not unless they were made to his cell phone that the fact that they were anonymous undercuts and i think your opponent then never briefed quite candidly says the threats by themselves are not enough we would agree ok but there's also a demotion and there's also accusations of membership  the opposition party which i take it would hurt his status working in this industry and they say the i j a didn't really consider all three of those together if you isolate each of them as you as you as you suggest they might not be enough but if you put  together why are they and you know you have to get to the totality of the circumstances i think the immigration judge properly look first at each of those things individually but then did ultimately reach the conclusion that even taken cumulatively those things did not come out in the totality of the circumstances to harm rising to the level of persecution with that with the job devotion i think it's very important note that what actually happened in this case was he was transferred he wasn't fired he didn't lose his salary there's no evidence to show that his family was somehow put into poverty compared to the types of cases where this court has found economic persecution harm economic harm rising to the level of persecution this case falls far short of that and it's economic harm might be hanged it's the demotion wasn't just pure economic harm innocent remove him from the office where the corruption was going on and there was some evidence that they believed that he was a member of the c f that the freedom fighters which was an opposition party that actually attempted  two thousand and two thousand so is a decade later but in this case your honor we can only evaluate an immigration judge can only evaluate the arguments that are put forward and the argument that was put forward was this was economic persecution as well as as gets to your honest question about perhaps a demotion being some sort of change to his status the disability the inability or difficulty in finding a job he didn't testify at all that in fact i think it's very important he worked up literally until the day he left and the evidence would indicate that he's getting paid until the day he left that's his that's petitioners testimony he says i worked one day and i got on a plane to  cambodia the next day he could have gone right back to work so the evidence could have shown a lot more if it were if it were there and that's why this case ultimately comes down to dismiss failure to meet that burden to show the evidence of rising to the level  evaluate this case based on the evidence that's and frank you know the question about the evidence i'm just trying to find a techno sadness i've been talking about is in the record yesterday that's on the record temporarily when did the accusations of membership and i just testimony is not clear about that that's why i'm asking that was earlier your honor but i would have to double check so i'm what i'm asking is is the i j a finding that this all occurred at some point and then never occurred deal with each of is focusing there on the threats because it is important to note that these three threats come and they know where this individual works if they want to find him they can find him if the threats are to be taken that seriously they know where he works they put him in that job in phnom penh so the threats come he's able to avoid any further threats simply by discarding his phone so that undercuts the seriousness both of the the threats in terms of whether they rise to past persecution but also in evaluating the likelihood of future harm in this case it appears and there was some discussion about this in the record that the threats were aimed essentially to keep petitioner quiet as was noted earlier he didn't was two or three ok so it would they were relatively recent when he left they were your honor but i think it that doesn't undercut the fact that if these threats were as serious as he would have this court believe that the individuals making those threats knew exactly where to find him and three phone calls he throws with cell phone no one bothers him no one bothers his family after that the threats as was discussed in the record may have been aimed simply to keep him quiet they may have those threats may have silenced him but they didn't persecute him is this court's presence make clear that threats by themselves have to rise to a almost a menacing level before they can be qualified as persecution even adding in the economic claim here the demotion of the job thousand and two and then the threats came in two thousand and four yes you know what's what's also important note there is that at first he was told centrally show up and do nothing but then they moved him to a different job so he was getting presumably paid well he demoted it with any evidence he was getting paid there is limited evidence as to that again that's that's petitioner's burden to show if he's going to make a claim for economic persecution he has to show under this court's precedent severe economic harm which he could have done and i see my time's expired but to answer your question what could have done that if the evidence was there to support it by showing a drop in salary and inability to make ends meet his family going into poverty he didn't show any of that and at some level we're stuck with the evidence that this court is stuck with the evidence it's in the record there's a lot of other evidence as been discussed that could have come in that would have helped his claim he didn't bring that evidence forward and in the end that's why this claim fails not because he wasn't a whistleblower as your honor noted earlier the immigration judge never made that finding the immigration judge simply said you don't meet the other requirements for know but at this time i'm not clear on where he is employed when's the last time you talked we've been speaking on and off the past few months in preparation of today but mostly about what's transpired not about  not based on an economic harm that he's suffered or that he fears he's going to suffer his claim based on persecution and harm to his person fear that something was going to happen to him while he was in cambodia and fear that if he returns t will be harmed if i know that opposing counsel stated he continued to work until the day he left in part that was because he was afraid to ruffle any feathers or cause more attention to be brought upon him than then he was already receiving and so part of the the company in keeping him employed was also a way for them to keep an eye on him to make sure that he was quiet even even though he was really not doing anything at work as he testified he was doing small tasks it was mostly to ensure if your claim is only fear of physical harm which is a question i don't point quite why does the demotion and the make  his colleagues his family people and the media were aware that he was being accused of being a terrorist as you had stated earlier at the cambodian freedom fighters around two thousand and three had attempted a coup and being accused of terrorism being part of that organization at that time was essentially being accused of being a terrorist so those who are very strong claims and were significant and establishing a fear of harm and in were subsequently killed this is according to petitioners testimony common knowledge in cambodia speaking out against the government was not  not looked lightly upon and in this case why he hadn't spoken out there was a fear that he would because he had a lot of information that could shed light on corruption within the government his be living out their lives in a safe a manner as is possible in that country aside from that i think that him being removed from there has diminished the attention that they were receiving while he was right thank you very much