grade education of pain in india and forwarded to the united states i think the immigration judge's decision here is somewhat puzzling because it's clear that an absolute lack of corroboration cannot undermine otherwise consistent credible testimony so it's puzzling to me how a partially corroborated case can undermine such consistent testimony but that's exactly what happened in this case and i want to sort of walk through the documents that the immigration judge relied on if i can the first one it's this is a page four thirty one of the administrative record this is a declaration from mr sting's father part got saying it's intended to verify or corroborate his claim of having been arrested in two separate occasions  that declaration mr singh's father states quote the police arrested my son on july twenty seventh one thousand nine hundred five from the good war and after this the police arrest him from the electrician's shop of my stand on da actually undermines his credibility because it doesn't in addition to stating he was arrested it doesn't mention how he was released it doesn't mention that a bribe was paid well it would be better certainly the declaration would have been more helpful if it line about a lack of detail in corroborating testimony with general rules that govern the determination of credibility in any other kind of a trial type proceeding let me see if i can be more specific it seems to me that a fact finder is entitle to consider in determining credibility and only the witness's testimony but how that testimony relates to all the other evidence in the case particularly any documents or the testimony of other witnesses in deciding whether or not the version that the person told from the witness stand is true all is our case f different in the immigration arena when it comes to judging the credibility of petitioners before the i j a i don't think so you are obviously in assessing credibility you have to do it in the context of other evidence and certainly one of the things that an immigration judge is going to look at is the petitioners ability to give detail and detail to his account but that's not the problem here the immigration judge isn't faulting this particular applicant for his inability to give the rather the immigration judge just saying here that these crab reading affidavits that were obtained by other key other people of tain by his father and written by other people don't contain enough detail and i would submit the absence of detail in those sorts of affidavits it really goes to the amount of weight that should be given to such an affidavit that it's really isn't really an attack on whether or not it is truly is not another way to say what you're saying yes i it be different if the corroborating got cumin it was from a completely objective source as opposed to a family member who is preparing them knowing that he's trying to help his son and yes immigration case in the u s and i that an appropriate consideration for the i j a given waving the value to absolutely in weighing the value of the evidence absolutely but that to me is a separate matter from what's at issue in this separate matter from whether or not they undermine the credibility of his testimony in order to ask the question a different way knowing that they come from the father is it unreasonable for the fact finder to ask for greater consistency in the document itself because of the fact that it comes from a biased source perhaps yes in terms of consistency but again there is no inconsistency here the issue here is not whether the document is somehow inconsistent with his testimony it's really a question of whether it's a complete account of what took place and that i think is a critical distinction  again i think it goes to weight the more detail in an affidavit the more impartial the source if it's an official source even more so the document to be entitled to more weight i would absolutely agree with you  was more consistent or in line with what the sun was saying you know if you're asking would it be better if mr singh had told his father exactly what your rights are i'm not sure that makes the document any more useful singular at that time could have done a better job of sort of marshalling the evidence i'm not absolving written declarations for third parties that we want to interview so you're absolutely right i think his lawyer could have done a better job i think the decorations could have been more complete and if they had been more complete they would have been deserving of more evidentiary weight but i don't think that they in any way undermined his his testimony because they're they're not inconsistent so you're saying that was a far as to say that because they don't provide that believe that particular piece of evidence because it comes from his father no i mean the law in this circuit and i believe most circuits is that you cannot simply dismiss an affidavit because it's you know it benefits the person presenting it but when i used to cross examine wives and girlfriends of defendants it was wrong for me to simply point out the defendant called the mother testified on it now i don't agree with that either i think it's perfectly fine for you to show bias the question is whether it can be dismissed i don't believe it can be ignored it certainly can be given little weight don't we permit the fact finder and in any other kind of a proceeding to simply decide that they don't want to believe or credit a particular item of evidence because they don't think that it's believable well let's just assume that in this case the immigration judge decided that she doesn't want to credit any of these affidavits let's assume that be true ok well he didn't need to present the affidavits to begin with an arch established the merits of his case testimony we've been occupying you with questions and if you don't mind staying up here for another minute i got another one what do you do with the inconsistency between the petitioner statement as to his injuries and the nature of his treatment from the doctor and the doctor statement in his affidavit has to the treatment that was provided by immigration judge made a point of this yeah the on to the extent that she did i actually don't find the doctor's letter to be inconsistent i mean this is a paid for thirty five the administrative record that the key portions of that are the third and fourth paragraph the third paragraph says i have appointment something that had to be rubbed on the body the dressings that's me is what he's talking about here that's that whatever they rubbed on the swollen parts of his body he says i have given treatment well yeah like there's mr singh testified that include pills and capsules again it could have been more specific but when he says i have given treatment i assume that he's not giving us the exact nature of that treatment he did list one thing the dressings but i think that again this may be considered somewhat incomplete but it's not it's not inconsistent and you're and i heard you say that in your view it's possible to construe the word dressings as used by the doctor to be speaking about the  applied externally well the battle dictionaries that i consulted yes any application of any sort of therapeutic balm or solve or it can include things like that thank you very much we've held you over with questions we'll give you a minute on your honor could be there i could possibly be extra or internal how do you know that there's the same housing in terms of treatment of x turn all internal how do you know that addressing is different from a night much whether whether either one would be necessary on your theory of medicine sikh temple somewhat less and why was this started out and because i was a part of the police so we don't get much elaboration from from the us that's right is it inconsistent when he said in response to further questioning well i started going somewhat present at the temple on july twenty seventh when he was arrested and that they witnessed him being forcibly grabbed out by the police and that they try to protest and everything like that and that this is you know this can be construed as being inconsistent when you get the two letters from witnessed this event that occurred another thing we would point out is that although again it depends on what they were asked to say maybe they were merely asked to say well what i need is some evidence that in fact i am a genuine and were indicated that you know he now he must show persecution which is why they probably mention that and it's just sort of a very it's got to or i think consistency that they would not mention having witnessed him being forcibly arrested by the police furthermore when human rights lawyers representing seats were notable exceptions to this generally improved picture yes and these events took place in july and october this was a legend of that took place in july in october of ninety five ye just very briefly your honor the government suggests that mr singh was somehow inconsistent in saying that on the one hand he had no external injuries and any other hand he had swelling the critical passage for the first time this came up in the records on page one thirty seven of the record when he was being asked about his treatment following his first arrest and the question was what kind of injuries was he treating the doctor and mr singh replied you know the first time this came up for example i had swelling because of the internal injuries i mean if he's clearly sort of conflating the two he's saying on the one hand i had swelling but he's attributing it to internal injuries it's really good what's an internal what's next