yes good morning your honour's anthony richard dominguez on behalf of petitioner wanting copies of papa may please the code word material in the material support bar should be ascribed its plan and ordinary meaning court's decision and collins instructs us as to how we should you be illustrated lisc i don't specifically the court should adopt the court should adopt collins and narrowing construction of the illustrate of terms which here the illustrate of terms of the examples which congress gave which funds communications and other material financial benefits however the court should view those terms narrowly to has to apply we to every example which congress gave in the that's true but if they offer own sons as an example of that your real support doesn't tell us wish that this court decision in collins instructs us that we must read the illustrate of this in a different way and while the word material the definition of material can change depending on the context it always has the effect of raising the threshold of the word that it modifies here material modifies the word support in that illustrated listening examples of support which can be given to the terrorist organization are examples of support but they must be important or significant to the organization in order to rise so will you agree with me then yes and then if you provided a support if they are qualified and rise to the level of materiality if i may your seems to me so it says transfer funds or other material an actual benefit which appears to me to assume that funds are because of the following example it's natural that of financial benefit something intangible it's a stock or something that there is other material financial benefit that means there is such a thing as an immaterial financial benefit it would be congress could not have tended that in any material financial benefit when converted into a tangible cash or something's fons automatically becomes material example and then and example you're talking about with transfer it says transfer of funds or other material financial benefit right yes maybe it's so so in that the only way i think they wish language works the way language works is to it is to read that as meaning that a transfer funds is a material financial that what's the point of the word other  i believe that congress was attempting to emphasize the fact that a transfer another material financial benefit needed to have great cortin's for organization had congress intended that all funds be per se material they could have just as easily included the word any funds as they did in the criminal statute which was as been referenced in the brits and their congress in the criminal statute they described they defined material support as any property tangible or intangible or service including currency or find other financial services here congress specifically did not the term any funds where they if they had intended funds to be per se a material support they could have easily constructed the statute in a way including that term and there additionally your honor again i would refer back to the illustrated lists that if congress had intended that any of the examples to her say the material support the word material would effectively be excluded from the statute because that would mean if any example of the support needed to had to be material simply that would violate the rule against avoiding surplusage your honor that would essentially doesn't read the word material out of the statute it just it just provides you examples of what what would constitute material support i can put it another way your honor i don't think it would be an absurd result let's say under the list any communication to a terrorist organisation was classified as material support and we must know that the word material needs to be quite equally to every example so if there is a basic just speaking to someone who is in a terrorist organisation constitutes it is an example that would not rise to that level of materiality the court should not adopt the per se rule which finds which would apply material in in a different ways throughout every example of the statute listed additionally this and the same goes for the weapons about weapons well weapons are an example of of of support  i and they can in fact we have do we have we have whether the weapons are material or not explosives might not be the best example i do think my point is is is demonstrated by the idea that not all communications would be material support in fact the  m actually gives the example that expressing mere general support under one definition they proffer that it support must be something normally tangible i nature that expression of a mere general support let's say stand it on a street corner would not constitute material support however under the said initially that that they give that material support is an act that logically in a reasonably has a foreseeable tendency to promote sustain or maintain the organization even if only to a de minimus degree under that inconsistent definition but they proffer expression of them your support  communication would be an example of a terrorist or a material support which that's the exact example that they gave which would be excluded from the definition of material support earlier and the decision under their st definition so while we proffer we believe that there is a plain and ordinary meaning of the material here here which needs to be applied equally throughout to every example in the statute and that plain ordinary meaning is important or significant should the court disagree and find that the term material support is ambiguous the internal inconsistency is within matter a c m demonstrate statute that would not qualify because what you would need to have is a communication that logically and reasonably has a foreseeable tendency to promote sustain or maintain the terrorist organization innocuous communication with a terrorist organisation would not meet that threshold i would also point out that in the th circuit's decision and ryan m it talked about it and it both found the that the plain meaning of the statute did not require any type of quantitative analysis and deferred to  but in making determination about the meeting it focused on the fact that thought it particularly focused on funds and how the while perhaps there could be questions about other provide support to an organization a terrorist organization once it has money can use that to increase its criminal activities just weapons and then goes on to provide a list of the activities that constitute material support there's no limiting language there there's no minimum thresholds that someone needs to surpass and the notion of having a minimum threshold particularly in the context of funds doesn't make much sense from a national security standpoint because again money is money and whether a terrorist organisation able to amass the funds it needs to carry out its activities either through one large contributor or through multiple smaller contributors the fact remains that that's the type of activity that we want people to be engaging in and be able to take up legal residence in our country the other the other aspect of that just to  the you know there's language in there that that lays out funds as an example of material support and then also also talks about a transfer of funds or other material financial benefit and  i don't read transfer of funds i don't read transfer of signs or other material of financial benefit as functioning together there are two to separate concepts and i think it i i'm sorry your honor i i was referring to the fact that congress made out transfer of science and then was building on that and within that with a or other material financial benefit i yes ok yes your honor so i think maybe i wasn't relaying our position so well so the this is referring to transfer of signs or some other type transfer of some other material financial benefit and i think the use of material there really works in concert with the board's understanding of material support this is these are all classes of different ways of providing material support and that's the that simply shows that congress had a broad understanding of the types of transfers that could be used and wanted to include language that would allow for transfers of funds or transfers of other material benefit that would all  to so i was talking about how material support has is a is a broad concept and this court and other courts have already acknowledged that this court has already done charo i would also point out that the in terms of the board's precedent decision in matter of a c s the court made a little bit of a policy analysis explaining that courts including this one have rejected the idea that congress wanted a duress exception to the material support bar and found it odd that yes i so what i was trying to i was i was attempting to use that holding to explain why it makes sense that the board found that there is no  requirement that there is no exception for small amounts of funds that would be provided to a terrorist organization the board explained that whereas in courts like this one where the congress decided that even people who acted in voluntarily or were coerced and acted under describe duress that those people still committed material support it would be odd to conclude that someone who  acts of their own volition would somehow be excepted from the bar simply because the person contributed some arguably small amount of money and this concept of what is in a small amount of money also gets challenging questions about terrorism how to terrorist organizations function the capacity of individual who provided the funds in the st place and these are simply not the types of questions that the congress wanted the immigration courts and judges to be weighing in on and this is where the importance of the exemptions or the waivers from the material support bar come into play because those decisions are made by the department of homeland security in conjunction with the secretary of state and the attorney general all of which would have strong understanding of these sorts of national security concerns particularly the secretary of state and i will note that in this case the petitioner was considered for a waiver and it was denied and there isn't any the petitioner hasn't raised any challenge to that i decision what would be a matter of tests i mean it would just be as i understand your argument it would just be a fair reading of the statute we don't get to deference until there are some ambiguity yes your honor i've referenced deference simply because the th circuit's decision and ryan mcgee st concluded that the plain meaning of the statute dictated that signs are always material support but then also even assuming that the statute in plain they would still defer to the court's decision so you are correct eighty eight dollars plain meaning analysis does not require any deference to the agency at all that the court would just look at the language the statute anything else if there are if there aren't any other questions i would ask that the court deny the petition for review based either on a plane meaning because it means that the word material material should not appear to get later on or i believe congress was read emphasizing the fact that a financial benefit it's just a redundant sink i believe it's a essentially sloppy drafting your honor no matter what definition this court finds prescribes to material of course we prefer for that it should be the plain ordinary and paghman definition of important  there is going to be some surplusage given that in this nd material standard as the concurrence in the th circuit points out over and it makes the most sense when and we would request that the court adopt a holding in this case the scribing that plain and ordinary meaning of material to material the material support bar in this  case i would like to add your honor if that it would simply be unconscious of all should the court announce a per se rule that any funds no matter the amount are material support  decision that about i believe it was one thousand two hundred dollars was sufficient to rise to the level of material support again because the b i a did not find that the one hundred dollars  provided in this case was in fact material they simply assume basically announced the per se rule that no matter how little the songs because the terrorist organization can aggregate those funds