good morning ladies and gentlemen i'm advised that all counsel are here for the first four cases so we might as well get started right away with those no need to call attendance we'll start with jang vs session china who is charged by a nose to appear in him in removal proceedings before an immigration judge in new york with having introduce us an unknown place and on an unknown date without inspection he alleged that he entered the united states in july one thousand nine hundred ninety seven his application for asylum on august seventh two thousand and twelve admittedly after the one year deadline within which an alien may file an application for asylum within the united states you can assume we know all this from the record the concern i know you have the ease that the agency did not find him to have the stablished of fear of future persecution so you can tell us why you think that's error the judge  this case really comes down to as as far as a well founded fear of persecution goes because there is no explicit credibility determination in this case and i'm not even sure there is even a very good hint at a credibility determination based on this record i don't see anything obvious that would lead one to believe that the immigration judge meant that he felt incredible but didn't so this case really comes down to the emission of one item and why no idea of mr mr singh's testimony and then a letter from his mother and intelligence from the public security bureau now as far as a letter from the public security bureau goes the only reason that appears to have been discounted by the judge is a failure to authenticate it now my primary concern with that is of course that is a document straight from the persecutor i'm not sure how under the q saw the circuit mr saying couldn't possibly authenticated i know the department of the attorney general as stated he could have authenticated by it by other means but i don't see what other means would have been available on the record to i think to kate a letter from a persecutor of the chinese government as far as the letter from his mother is concerned the letter from his mother was discounted as is commonly the case where there it's said that it's from an interested witness who is not subject to cross examination however on the other hand the immigration judge demanded a letter from mr singh sister in phoenix which if you had provided that letter would have had the same problems it would be from an interested witness who is not subject to cross examination so he's demanding a letter which based on his judgement of the mother's letter he would have discounted even if he had gotten a letter none the less mean that the agency found that the respondents not shown an objective lee reasonable possibility that he would be singled out individually for persecution upon removal to china the agency treated this is a speculative conclusion having assigned lesser weight the id having signed lesser weight to the the showing that maybe there was a visit maybe there was a police report nonetheless he had not met his burden to show that he would be singled out and would be persecuted i took that as a finding based on everything in the record with maybe not having made an adverse credibility finding that the visit never happened but that even had such a visit happen that wouldn't have been enough to preclude his return to china generally could you speak to that please yes i don't believe it's speculative at all if the notice from the public security bureau and a phone call from his mother are given way i think it speculative if those that testimony were going that phone call and notice are given either very little weight or no weighted all now one interesting thing is that at the beginning of the individual the department's attorney objected to the mother's letter but didn't object to the notice from the public security bureau if you accept that you think the notice in the public's bureau would be enough to establish a written objective lee reasonable fear of future persecution should your client return to china generally is that yes i do i think he asked him to surrender but really it's not just that it's also his own testimony which was not found incredible about his phone call call her station with his mother and a letter from her when when you view it in the aggregate in the aggregate it should give him a well founded fear of persecution wherever he were to return to surrender based on antigovernment activities and i believe it is mother's phone call or first to it is as having committed treason would that give me cause for concern would that satisfy the lower burden for asylum that one hands of having a reasonable fear of persecution yes beer for fifteen years and then go join an anti chinese communist organization in the united states and then say oh you can't send me back because of what he did here it's like i get get out of jail free card because what you're hearing you say these things which are not punishable here is is a surprise it reminds me i'm afraid of the very old still joke about the  young man who murders his mother and father and claims leniency because because he's an orphan but your honor this is our case law does allow someone to ask for asylum based upon activities when near is a real risk future persecution and when not now in every error you've assigned to us i'm sure you know that we have precedent that has said that the way to give evidence is a matter for the discretion of the agency that authentication is something that the agency gets to have some some fair amount of flexibility in deciding i mean i could cite you cases on each point of error you've assigned to us you have to show us that this rose to a level where no reasonable fact finder could have failed to give determinative weight favorable to hear klein and i'm not sure i understand why we would reach that conclusion help us out right well to answer your your honour's question i mean as far as the credibility of the claim goes that's really for the immigration judge to decide it's raised with regard to part of that evidence he pointed to for party members who were rested upon their return to mine is that right but what evidence was there that he was similarly situated to party  leaders the testimony from the party chairman only testified about one leader who is a former chairperson he didn't refer to the other three people as leaders he referred to them i think even one you refer to as a party member meanwhile there's a document former chairperson that person clearly is a leader i know he referred to one is a party member i saw that in his testimony which didn't give me the impression that a party member would wish was any sort of a leader  submitted were not were not entitle to any way whatsoever it's just about i published some articles on the internet they might have seen them yes i would understand that i wouldn't say that and what about the chinese government's awareness as a whole of his activities when you had the police report from the village does that is that enough to determine that the chinese government as a whole was aware of his neck to absolutely arrest him on return absolutely there and i believe that's the case why the circuit to that one doesn't even need to fear national authorities local authorities by themselves one can have a well founded fear of local authorities and still have a well founded fear of persecution upon return to their country i know you want to research some time for rebuttal so let's hear from your very good thank morning your honour's please the court sunnily representing the attorney general and as you've already discussed this comes this case comes down to the petitioners failure to meet his burden of proof that hypothetical the agency's concern was it wasn't authenticated which i took to mean if it had been authenticated there might have been more than a speculative basis right that's that's so because the agency determined that that evidence was not persuasive and gave it little weight not persuasive because it wasn't authenticated and counsel says how do you expect them  have been relevant and he may not be speaking with his sister about this kind of thing or they may be a strange thing a number of reasons for it but the agency seemed to see it as a negative mark against his sister lives in the united states so it seems that since they do speak he testified that they speak that he could have provided a letter or her testimony that he did the agency ignored it seemed the testimony that the party chair had told the jenna told the party chair on several occasions concurrent with the correspondence or phone calls he had with his mother that the police had been after contemporaneously with his conversations with his mother told him that his mother had told him that the police were after him the agency gave no weight to that at all well because the they don't say determined that the mother's letter was  also gave that letter limited weight as well and it was just there was no adverse credibility finding that's what i find kind of strange and seemed ultimately to add up to an implicit at risk credibility finding while pointing to individual pieces of evidence that were you know technically flawed for some reason for example the absence of authentication the judge reggie has been mentioning well the board stated in its decision that it assumed that the petitioner credible and even so the petitioner still has to to provide persuasive evidence to show objectively reasonable a fear of returning to china and the evidence that he warm that have been granted asylum well i see the case is that where the the board has the excuse me agency has denied the claim so i don't see the  there wouldn't be here right your honor the petition have to show that the national authorities are aware of his activities and would take action on his return or if the materials from the village had been properly authenticated his mother's letter in the police report would that have been sufficient i think that could possibly be sufficient in some cases and to answer your question i don't think that there has to be specific proof that the national government is aware i believe under second circuit case the petitioner has to show that the government or a government officials are likely to become aware or are aware of the petitioners i need to be local not now i think that it's possible to establish a claim but as as your honour's have pointed out all of his activities did take place in the united states and the evidence like the country reports don't show that anyone that the chinese government is interested in political activists in the united states discusses  opposition parties in china and furthermore there's an no evidence on the record to show persuasively that low level members of the petitioners party are persecuted upon returning to china and so basically comes down to it he just didn't provide a proof persuasive case either through his testimony or th his evidence and the agency is permitted to to give to assign weight to his evidence and in this case it just was not enough  nother person named and it is the most recent one we have is a party member named dog sheely who he does not refer to as a high level official or chairman or anything of that nature authenticate someone under the regulations you cannot authentic a document with just the u s foreign service officer u s foreign service officer must go to the government and make sure that this person is really an official of that government which really is the first isn't it i mean someone could presumably sit down put a piece of paper on a typewriter or even write it out and say and pretend to be a foreign officer if the u s service officer looks at the document and says oh no this is the exact format that i know they use that's one more step along the road toward this being an authenticated document so you're arguing that though that wouldn't have been enough to get you home that that excuses you from providing any evidence of authentication and that i i'm not sure is correct on the other hand there are cases where people have to authenticate documents or they're not alleging a fear of going home and those sorts of cases i can see the person through this the fact that u s service officer authentication might not by itself be enough excuse you from getting it at all well it least know this looks like a genuine document as opposed to looking totally fraudulent it doesn't it doesn't excuse it completely however it does affect the weight of the the evidence that should have been assi why it was given very little weight but should have been given enough weight to get to what i mean without a foreign service authentication saying this is what it is this is indeed what these kind of reports look like i don't think the foreign service office would have i think the key to the document without turning it over to the to the chinese government to him if this person is really an official of the government i don't believe that we can thank you very much