late may please the court good morning peters yes good morning make this the court this case is about a man from ethiopia who came here in two thousand and nine he had been put into a prison camp many years prior by the ethiopian government when the e p r d f basically won the war he was there for five months approximately malnourished and inhumane circumstances and the center for victims of torture documented the p t s d and flashbacks that followed so many years later after working for n g o s in ethiopia and traveling to the united states having much immigration appeals fail but that decision was proper interest me you need to establish that the agency lacked substantial evidence you can't just assume your view of the facts and proceed as if they were true yes judge the immigration judge really focused on the on mr imus role in the military he was concerned for most of the excuse me most of the hearings that mr could have been involved in human rights abuses himself because he had been a captain so we spent a lot of time on that but in the end the judge did find that there was no evidence of any human rights abuse by mr  t that he was simply a captain in an army and not responsible for the actions of that army but in his decision regarding mr he did not consider cumulatively everything that we presented that was presented in the record for example he did not consider the fact that mr i had been imprisoned for five months and interrogated him physically and mentally abused in prison he did not consider the death threat to be credible when the two officers came into his office with got one had a gun and sad if you don't stop doing what you're doing talking to people you're talking to you'll be killed the also the mental torture that stems from the physical abuse a judge's decision was based on the absence of corroboration yes gyrus were his wife and other relatives too were these theoretically available for corroboration purposes for the two thousand and one incident and that was not produce that's correct judge we submitted a human rights report and that was all about surveillance in ethiopia and so on right there's nothing in other words there's nothing wrong inherently suspects about a report of being threatened by a government agent but that this particular threat was on corroborate circumstances that show that it is under reasonable to require such evidence what's unreasonable about requiring cooperation from family members in this instance judge so when the officers came in there was no one who witnessed question now i should think is whether there's stanch eleven's for the immigration judge's decision not to buy and as i said before just repeating the arguments that you made to the immigration judge and the board that were to do in a court of appeals judge i want to understand your question the the substantial evidence is not there to show that corroborating evidence should be required when the wife could be asked where's your husband interrogated while she wasn't there the what's on reasonable about assuming that he would have mentioned this incident to his wife nothing judge not not a thing at all he was afraid and he testified to this he was afraid to cop to talk to her on the phone he really believed and yes he gave that as reason and the immigration judge didn't accept it why is the immigration judge for didn't to say i don't buy your argument that subject to fear is enough judge we would say that asking the government the let me let me put this differently and every alien in every case could say i'm not offering any corroboration because i subjectively fear of the persecutors and in that event the corroboration requirement is dead right well it's dead so you need to make something other than this generic argument which can be made in every case by every alley judge i think the difference in this case is the surveillance of ethiopian government and the targeting of any person perceived to be in opposition to the ethiopian government so any person perceived any pressure there is there evidence from which the agency would have to conclude that anyone who served in the dirt military is being persecuted in ethiopia today no judge it would be the combination of human rights human rights workers who are perceived to be in opposition to the ethiopian government that's really what the department of state reports the amnesty and human rights watch reports do corroborate that those who are cursed sieved as being in opposition to the e n government a political dissident of any sort would be targeted so the work that he did with a peace d m and with b c s and his many contacts with western with americans during the adoption process put him in a position of being perceived as in opposition to the government the immigration judge and the board concluded that bethany whole picture you've been making for the last two minutes is that those people are perceived as in opposition to the government and persecuted that can't be true if you concede the risk you judge not  all people who work in every single and geo but the evidence shows that the ethiopian government has targeted many n g o s perceived as being funded by western sources and that people are an expert also spoke on this the people are targeted randomly so we're not just arguing it was b c s we were arguing he worked with a p c s that is now closed down and with and he had this passed and that those cumulative factors should have been considered by the judge and the board because it wasn't just one thing it was his humility hiv background and his of working human rights as well as coming to united states for adoption for work with his adoption with children that made him a target that made him stick out his persecut what we we would ask that the board would consider so going back to corroboration and it being reasonable or unreasonable the fact that the persecutor here would have been asked for crop grading evidence would be unreasonable so judge to go back to to that question one more time requesting the ethiopian government for at the b c s office from mister and that was not considered by the judge nor was the surveillance mr thomas so that he was followed after these men came to his office and threatened him and that also was not considered and should have been so the fact that the b c s offices remain open your right to have no proof that they don't remain open but the consideration the immigration judge should have considered these other aspects of this man's experience that do amounts to persecution and those things were not considered in fact in the first argument i tried to point out that the test that the evidence compels should compile a showing of past persecution is not the test that's required it is just a showing of past persecution and that that was met and then in the second point we've already gone over cropper ation the third point goes to the lack of consideration of the department of state reports  as far as finding persecution in excess so the the reports that we included very clearly showed that there was persecution of any person who was perceived as being in opposition but that could be a very wrong and it's a very random thing and the expert witness dr levine explains that it really is anyone who is perceived as such so there are human rights organizations that have remained open but most many have been shut down and included a lot of sites to the record as far as those report good morning may it please the court lisa morning on behalf of the attorney general the court should deny this petition for a view because petitioner failed to meet his burden of proof for asylum and withholding of removal and petitioner has not established that the record compels the conclusion that the agency erred the record supports the three main reasons articulated by the agency in denying petitioners application first petitioner failed to offer reasonably available second assuming petitioner did not adequately corroborate his claim petitioner did not need us burned prove that he experience past persecution in ethiopia the record supports a judge's conclusion that petitioners detention was in connection with the criminal investigation and petitioner did not establish that the two thousand and nine threat was sufficiently menacing in nature to compel the conclusion that the judge erred finally the record does not compel the conclusion that the ethiopian government petitioner as opponent as an opponent because of his previous work with non governmental organizations outside of the two thousand and nine threat security agents never again approach petitioner or his family members all of whom still live in  judge just to respond quickly and again the government's argument that corroborating evidence that a person should be able to ask their persecutor for crowd reading the feeder of getting another person into prison torture was really the concern of mr i asked him  for him he was afraid to ask his wife because he thought maybe she would then be targeted in prison and there's so much imprisonment without  are and it is very common and it does go back to what was mentioned before people are of course afraid of getting their loved ones for friends or past colleagues into trouble if the government has been the persecutor because the government has the power to just go pick that person up if they find out that they're giving evidence that they're saying yes they the opinion government did this to me as well then they would become a target and they could be thrown into jail too so