morning morning may please the court gary your m n b half a petition or the board has recognized in decisions haven't president presidential authority the concept  what has happened to persons similarly situated has a bearing on the claim made by an asylum seeker matter of mogul robbie stating that where the country at issue has a history of persecuting people in circumstances similar to those of the solemn seeker careful consideration should be given to that fact this court has the authority and i would ask it to take judicial notice of the two thousand and seventeen internet state department international freedom report a few excerpts what i feel believe are the most damaging or as follows on page six while the current regulations stipulate the obligations of religious groups to abide by the in the errors in the b i e s decision we can we can read the report and are happy to be in and look at it closely but i think you might be better served by telling us what why substantial evidence doesn't support the b i a s determination that you know this is a difficult circumstance here but the client seems to have gone to church irregularly since he arrived in the united states he was not baptized he the agency found that he was an inadequate basis for thinking that he actually would become a  regular churchgoer were he to be returned to china and especially to the province that he was in and that the fact that his father had been persecuted was inadequate to reason substantial evidence didn't support that conclusion or that a reasonable fact finder we can help compel to find otherwise especially i mean we've got somewhat favorable credibility finding here and so i i'd like to hear your view about that that evidence in particular about whether it was speculative that he would be a church goer or not we can take notice of various matters in the report such as the seventy million dollars christians in maybe that's a basis for finding that he would be were it to come to people's attention there but only i really would like you to focus on on his particulars here if you would ok on  let's start with the fact that the immigration judge found my client to be credible and that the b i agreed with that finding and did not disrupt it so we start with the fact that he's credible and then we go to his testimony now we go to the record pages six hundred and thirty five thousand and sixty seven that's part of the testimony that would like the court to focus on because it's that part of his testimony where he says now that i'm not working on sundays i'm able to go to church on a regular consistent basis he started that only in the four or five weeks right before his hearing for the immigration judge he had not gone to church on easter he didn't know when easter was he said he just forgot he wasn't that he was working and he had he went to church he attended church i think a total of maybe far off the twelve time something like that it was a little hard to tell from the record the problems in those gaps but i would assert to the court that this is the reality of immigrant life this young man came here at the age of nineteen and he thought he was an adult so he should be on his own taking care of himself so he worked and went to school and when he had time he went to church and he stated that there's no requesting a day off if you're an immigrant there is no asking a friend or father to take a day off from work if you're an immigrant and his father was working was living across the country so we would assert that he was not reasonably available so we look at my client's testimony and his testimony is that i came here i was introduced to christianity i delved into it a little bit then i lost my ability to go there but now i'm back and i believe that this is something i want to continue doing and this is in the record something i want to participate in something if you send me to china i will continue to participate in so that's the reality of this young man situation i would assert that that's maybe even more plausible than somebody comes here in los and goes to church every day for six months and then says i'm a christian well ok but just because you went to church every day for six months doesn't make you a christian and what's more had what's more important is what the chinese government perceives my clients intentions or not the not amount of knowledge an amount of time that he will be going to church is he a practicing christian is he disrupting the communist superiority theory of government or the disruption only be theoretically if he was attending an underground church and the chinese government might be concerned about that chiefly if he was a leader of underground church and indeed there may be provinces in which they don't care about it you know it's hard to see why if you can't be in ju province way to be in brooklyn well you know that's a valid question and that's why i wanted to start out my argument here with pointing out what the two thousand and seventeen international airports years because this court this bench has decided between the two between the bench has decided fifty seven religious future fear cases and in all your decisions on present decisions you've denied the claim except for one changed the words from religious leaders and clergy to at hearing which is not in the record but yes there but it doesn't state any material change in the treatment of underground i would respectfully disagree you wanted it list attackers don't block it so small on the christians shot firecrackers at them and be one woman unconscious one of the attackers who poorly told the church members quote beating people up is my job end quote local police report only with views to intervene court if i told you that four percent of the population was conducting a certain amount of a certain kind of activity with that indicated this court that that activity is free from any interference identity you mean christian worship christian worship or what but the issue here is whether whether your client has demonstrated a likelihood that he would he would attend an underground church which only a small percentage presumably of that of that of those seventy million dollars do and and look at it's not enough for me to say how often he or to go to church or whether he should go to church on easter or whether he has other things that he has to do in order to keep body and soul together but opportunity to furch his church attendance to exaggerate his church attendance and he did it you know he's please his belief that that's the finding that was and so if is believable we have to look at the record where he says i will continue to attend churches if you send me to back to china and government sponsored churches or not will not satisfy my religious needs i may be truthful in the statement of a resolution i'm going to attend church i'm going to stop smoking i'm going to read anna karenina but you can be truthful about these things and yet not actually do them i agree i agree judge but we have to look at these facts and this man says that he will continue to attend church sent back to china his father was persecuted spent two weeks in jail because solely because he was a christian member and the government does have an extra set of eyes on this household and that's why there is a reasonable possibility that's not purely speculative that he will be harmed as a result of his religion as it was the last time the authorities visited his mother use ago and what is the status of case he submitted no objective evidence whatsoever that help is singled out for harm as home country who was so sued let me ask you about that you know he was found credible he has not been her all that long and his church  attendance has increased and become it appears more regular his father and it was not disputed i think by the government his father was persecuted in his home province for attending an underground church in france practice of christianity and was detained and beaten for for two weeks and that authorities had visited his mother and so the family is kind of on the radar screen of authorities and this also locality practices seem to be addressed by the record of his the persecution of his father and given the credibility finding that he it was his intention to not only is it his subjective fear  the fact finder in this case the father to be the petitioner's testimony about his father is the only incident in the record regarding the harm to a practicing christian in jail on products from pages isn't questioned by the government that at some point he was detained in two thousand and seven your honor but between twenty million ninety two thousand and thirteen the police came to their house to time isn't just said where is your husband where's your father and they left the family alone they haven't been back to that he admitted that since two thousand and thirteen the police  contacted his family whatsoever for any reason but that still suggest to me that the the family's on the government's radar screen and it's been almost a decade your honor since th they've contacted the family and again they only contacted the family that was in the context of where is the petitioner's father they have no awareness of the petitioner is a nominal christian and he hasn't pointed out how they would find out that upon his return and again that goes back to the weight of the evidence which is limited to five articles between one pages one hundred and thirty four thousand one hundred and fifty one which do not mention his home province whatsoever it mentions incidents in other provinces which shows that enforcement varies by the government and most importantly a page fourteen thousand one hundred and forty eight in certain provinces the authorities are hands off you can go to underground church and they don't bother people yes but here they did the father it appears but again that goes to the of a letter from the mother letter from the father and so on but in my experience who we see such letters the either dismissed as an interested party there inadequately authenticated and he can be there really of no particular help and it didn't seem to me that the i j a was very specific in his request for corroborating evidence could you speak to what  the crime is will hear your honor and that the only evidence whatsoever was the five news articles there was nothing else they asked him the st church you want to know what was the name of it he couldn't call it do you have letters or statements or testimony from people who want to church with you  aptest and he's be well he described the church she described to the building but he couldn't remember anything else about it and then there was the rd church where he admitted they went right over on his behalf because he had such an  dismiss but seemed to take those are signs of that any finding that he would attend church in china would be speculative more than that is that you're out of it again with the weight of the evidence in this case there are seventy million christians in china and he has to show why he specifically is going to be singled out as opposed to all those other people and given the variation in the force went from province to province twenty to one incident long seventy credibility finding his own statement that he would attend church if returned the visits of the authorities to his home the prior persecution of his father which was not credit discredit authorities awareness and past practice right but again you're out he would have to show that he specifically is going to be singled out for harm and he hasn't done that he has no one in china is aware of this country except for perhaps his mother but he didn't even talk about if he had discussed his religious practices or beliefs with her pee talks to her about every two weeks she said and really that she hasn't said anything about the authorities contacting the family and to put a fine you think it objectively unlikely that if he were to return to his home where his father was persecuted for his faith that the authorities would i think the fact finder in this case made a reasonable determination your honor that a reasonable fact finder could reach the conclusion in this case and that's what the agency determined and therefore it's supported by substantial evidence and the government cited numerous some published orders by this court in it and just to put a fine point on it in those cases it seemed that those petitioners had much stronger cases than the pedestrian this case and yet the court still held that substantial evidence supported the inches determination and what was the government's position on whether we  laurie i'm not saying that correctly i apologize but even if it did the excerpts cited by petitioners counsel don't mention gielen province and really don't don't discuss rank and file practice more generally can we take notice of it