you can lower that if you want thank you you know the whole thing lowers own rejected the sexual advances of a member of the mara salvatrucha she violated to be sick norms and salvadoran society that the gangs control the population and that it is men not women who control sexual relationships she acted on her right to consent in a country where she has no such right she did so knowing she was put putting herself at risk because as she said it was her right to do so and she was right three days later as her group all women or all women who  subjected to the unwanted advances by imus fifteen it's a i would say it's a subset of women and specifically women whose noncompliance with gender norms and one disputes that and the good news is that she's gotten relief at least under the conventions against torture because that because the salvadorian government is incapable of protecting her in her homeland so she has to come in the tells me that it has to be in a den a file book group and i'm trying to done if i'm trying to figure out the distinguishing characteristics that allow me to write a standard that says in el salvador people that have these characteristics are at risk yeah that's a really good point and you know on page nineteen of our brief we cite to a line of cases finding that women whose noncompliance with entrenched gender norms set them at risk for persecution do a where a woman violates well entrenched norms she sets herself apart in society they said you know that social stigma causes the violence that women who are seen as flouting gender norms are are are ostracized are seen as as outcasts and i think that making this group of women as outcasts is is really important to identifying them as a group and i think this is the fact that impunity for femicide in el salvador similarly to honor killings are carried out by private actors but they get away with it because society as a whole accepts and tolerate women who are not sufficiently submissive to men and this is not just the game not just men but law enforcement and that's really just a matter of general crime i mean  the conditions are terrible but but that seems to be a general problem and how does this become a particular group women who have rejected the sexual advances of a gang but i think i mean and then is there any evidence on the is the premeditation the organization the severity of the attack against her shows this was not generalized crime right the the energy that three gang members two of whom had no prior resists their efforts whether it be women whether it be business people who resist their efforts to pay money for them whether it be people kids who refuse to join the gang don't they have the same level of violence criminality across the board anyone who  criminal acts that they wish to do and why is this group this thing from every other group that is retaliated against by the gang for refusing to listen to them right i mean i think that's where i think that's where the gender norms element comes in here  know gangs operate with gemini over the country but they're also very patriarchal organization and that comes out in this case and what's important about that is that not just that the gangs are patriarchal but that violence against women who are not sufficiently submissive is accepted beyond the gangs it's accepted by the government it's accepted by society as a whole right i mean the state department talks about how  group could could women who are girlfriends of rival gang members claim asylum because there are distinct groups as well it's it's just a separate paragraph in the same report i think i mean depending it's hard you know depending on the facts of that case but i mean i  also i think what's important here and we there's a reason also that we lead with imputed political opinion here you know i mean that is i think a much cleaner analysis because you know as you know just as then judge alito recognized in fifteen of the ins which is one of these non conforming women cases you know these could just as easily be seen as feminism as as a as an opinion against this petri arkell power structure the on the political opinion point the recent th circuit case alvarez law goes there was expert testimony that the gang would view a refusal to comply with the demand for sex as political opposition was there any comparable evidence in this case we had of you know more focusing on the defiance of gender norms but i don't you know in the expert testimony of yonah was an expert who the judge relied on pretty heavily in who relied on pretty heavily in granting cat relief she says that women who violate for additional gender roles are believed to be deserving of punishment women who violate gender roles disobeying men or assert their independence are thought deserving of punishment and you know she doesn't call this political but commissioner for refugees definition of political which pacifically includes opinions about gender roles and non conformist behavior which may cause a persecutor to  impute such an opinion to an individual in that case and so we have this women who are kind of defiant of these norms who are not sufficiently submissive are seen as deserving of violent punishment and we have an understanding both in the words of of of then judge of and judge alito as well as the un h e r that that sort of gender dynamic and the statements good morning your honour's may court i'm carmel morgan on behalf of the respondent the u s attorney general the government ask that you deny the petition for review the evidence in this case does not compel the conclusion that the petition cognizable particular social group nor does it compel the conclusion that she established a nexus to a statutorily protected ground with regard to the particular social group the petitioner failed to show that the group she articulated was socially distinct and she failed to show that it was particular and because she did not meet both of those requirements she didn't show responding that well isn't that expert declarations some evidence of a distinct group i think the expert that the ration speaks only to general conditions in the country with regard to women but it doesn't say that the women are certainly vulnerable to file ansen abuse in el salvador that evidence doesn't say they're socially recognized as a discrete subset within the society and that is required establish a particular social group it doesn't speak to social distinction there's also the issue of particularities it's subjective a bit what might constitute resistance or refusal to comply with a sexual advance and that term too is a little bit subject to interpretation i think it would be extremely difficult to determine the boundaries of the group and so it doesn't woman that there because she had just because you have to be a woman clearly identifiable would be entitled that's not the argument the government's making in this case i'm trying to figure out how far the not understand the underlying logic of what right it's a valid question i mean women are certainly distinguishable but as you asked counsel that wasn't the group that was articulated she didn't argue women as a particular group she argued a very specific subset of women that doesn't meet these tests whether women itself might i don't know but a group would be a data file if there were additional i mean she suffered when she said no and then she suffered again because she said i mean that's what the record tells us and she's found to be incredible isn't the fact that she's suffering again because she said no i'm not to begin to indicate that at least some people were able to identify that she had previously said no i think it's a permissible inference permissible that perhaps she was retaliated against for an imputed feminist ideology permissible in front i don't even think phoniness ideology just the fact that an individual prefers have control over their bone body whether it be a man or woman and prefers to make a determination as to with whom and when they have sex and so but but the trick of it i don't mean the trick that the difficulty in it becomes being able to came to her home intoxicated and asked to have sex with her and anyone he told about it i mean this this happened at her home there weren't witnesses i don't know how people would know she belonged to that group she says she's not subject to social stigma i don't believe at least not according to the evidence in the record because she related she you're part of made the argument in the least early on that she was ostracized and one would be ostracized because she said  h you're is it your view that the record doesn't support that assertion but i don't know who else knows about her saying no she didn't tell her sister in law about what happened i just i don't think that information is out in the community for her to be recognized as part of that group want to move on to political opinion with regard to political opinion again i think it's a permissive inference that she might have been retaliated against because the gang members assumed that she had some sort of feminist political ideology but the record doesn't compel that conclusion and i think the most helpful case here  is the supreme court's decision in a law is saccharine as it also involved defiance of a gang and the way gangs operate they operate through violence and intimidation they don't like their authority challenge and what the petitioner here failed to do and also the petitioner and elias failed to show that it was a particular style of defiance and not simply defiance itself that caused the gang or the guerrillas to retaliate is there not some evidence that the  attackers viewed resistance as some kind of a political statement i think you want going to tolerate it i think you could construe it that way but the statements made more i think if you because you didn't do it the good way you were going to do it the bad way and also this is because of what you didn't do you're back to that it's a permissible inference but wrecked on the facts compel direct your honor the standard of review here is substantial evidence and the government's position is that while it's a permissible in for and it's not compelled in this  case the immigration judge certainly was sympathetic as also was pointed out the good news here is no one's trying to make her go back to el salvador she's found safety in the united states her daughter i believe has also been granted some form of relief or protection so they don't have to go back to the country where they face danger right thank you if there are no further questions we ask that you deny the petition for review so on the political opinion the government can only concedes this is a permissible and french but the record doesn't compel it seems we have a standard overview issue i appreciate the government's concession is a reasonable one she doesn't have to show conclusive evidence she shows director circumstantial evidence that such make it reasonable that for her to believe that this was a political we motivated attack in th establish that in me i want to give three reasons where i think that her opinion is that this was a politically motivated attack art is it that makes it reasonable  the st one is the nature of the attack the premeditation the organization the severity of the attack the energy that these three gang members put into harming her punishing her suggest that what she did meant something to them and they were explicit and this is point to the statement that they made that they were doing as they were beating her to one consciousness because she wouldn't quote do with the good way they saw this as punishing her resistance her disobedience to the sexual demands of one of their cohort a submission that they believe that he was entitled to and they wanted her to know why she was being punished they were sending a message to her and because they did it in a public place they were sending a message to everyone else to the rd point is the participation of the two additional gang members right there is the initial suitor and then these two additional gang members wh prior interaction with their nanda only thing they know about her is her disobedience to one of their company and in that context i think it is as the government say permissible i would say reasonable which is what is required under the law that they saw her refusal to submit to the sexual demands of one of her one of one of the gang members to quote do the good way as they caused them to believe that she held an opinion against the much cheese mo that they believed gave them control over her body that they believed made their one of their cohorts intitled to her submission and i think when you take that and you think take the country conditions where you have accepted tolerated violence against women like my client who aren't sufficiently submissive who do believe that they have a right to control over their own body that's political and if she's nearly killed for it that's political persecution and they wanted her to know that that's why they were hurting her they didn't rape or they broke her bones thank you