eighteen a salvadoran gang on account of their membership in particular social groups petitioners have submitted extensive ag argument and evidence on these issues which we believe compel a reversal here however given that i have very limited time today i want to focus on a path that would provide the minimum available relief to all petitioners re manned while showing deference to be in some reminders appropriate here in light of number one the immigration judge and the utter failure to conduct an individual ised analysis of brittany emery as claims a number to be flawed analysis of the required nexus between persecution by a gang and a petitioners membership in a in a particular social group namely the family before i explain the legal basis for re man's petitioners family related claims i'd like to take a moment to summarize the relevant legal and procedural history sandra enter young daughters title salvador and twenty fourteen in order to escape brutal beatings and threats of sexual slavery and death by the inmate team before fleeing sandra witnessed an m eighteen gang member shoot her brother carlos outside their parents home then three year old three year old brittany and eleven month old maria witnessed carlos's body injuries when sandra brought carlos inside the parents home sandra subsequently brought carlos to the hospital so that he could receive treatment however when she got to the hospital a police officer required that she complete a report regarding the shooting order forcing for carlos to receive care stander was obviously fearful that the m eighteen would retaliate if they found out she made the report but knowing that carlos needed the medical care she reluctantly made the report identifying herself as an eyewitness in the days following the shooting and eighteen members approached andra and demanded that she reveal her brother's location sandra told them that she did not know where her brother was a week later three female eighteen gang members approached sandra and told her it's all sandra's uncle and him eighteen gang leader wanted to talk to her from prison the women then handed sandra a cell phone and forced her to speak to saul who demanded that sandra reveal her door however even their solid game called and threatened sandra during this call demanded that sandra begin a sexual relationship with him in exchange for protection recognizing the imminent danger that they faced when sandra year old brittany began showing signs of severe psychological trauma due to the wit to the event she'd witnessed in el salvador including hallucinations while petitioners were in detention a government official determined that sandra had a credible fear persecution there after petitioners replacement removal proceedings although sandra claimed to britney and maria as derivatives in her asylum application both girls filed their own independent asylum applications in the briefing before the i j a petitioners repeatedly emphasized that maria and brittany had filed separate applications and that is daughters of sandra and nieces of carlos they have a well founded fear of persecution based solely on group identity that's protected well i think there is ample evidence in the record that indeed salvadoran society does recognize the group targeted gang girlfriends as a particular social group within el salvador  example we've cited articles that refer to gangs gangs pursuing young girls in order to make them girlfriends articles that referenced girls being murdered when they refused to a c two against a man that they be a girlfriend one one one four a fourth publication at twelve hundred a statement by our expert elizabeth kennedy at a r eight seventeen another statement by the same expert a r one one one separately no i think the children are situated differently even sandra in two respects the first is that unlike sandra the sole reason that the children are facing persecution el salvador is because of their family relationships they did not happen to witness the shooting of carlos such that the gang would pretty pursuing them for that reason they were not subjected to this threat of being a gang girlfriend by saul the very reason you know is extensively a mother also raised a family is as a child of somebody who's been targeted by the game they face a significant risk of persecution and also overjoyed by virtue of that fact and let me get back to my outline i can share with you some of the record cites for that evidence including m eighteen frequently target children of persons perceived wrong beginning simply as a way to get back at the at the at the person who's wrong the gang and simply because these children are related to that person and that respect is that they failed to address the fact that the very reason that sandra was perceived to have knowledge of carlos his whereabouts is because as a sister as a family member she would be somebody who would know that i think  she had witnessed the shooting or been out walking her dog and happened to see this it is far less likely that the gang would pursue or in regards to carlos his location and just turning back to the girl's claims to a moment they're also differently situated from their mother and that numerous courts and indeed i think the the office of immigrations on manual has recognised that child asylum applicants are subject to different standards when it comes to perceive something may not be a well founded fear of persecution for an adult but when  explained that would necessarily be the case because of the difference in the child's claims as well as the different standard of persecution that applies to child applicants so one remain and i think the appropriate course would be for the  to actually give these two little girls an individualized determination that considers those two standards with respect to them you know i can't predict what the outcome will be but i think at least at a minimum these two girls  of the girl's claims would necessarily require a remount of the mother's claims as well the case is consolidated in there for travel together we explain that honor stand if we were to say the board may know we are in rejecting the mother's claims but the board failed to address the children's claims so we were man for that purpose why would the mother be entitled any further at this stage that at this point in the case it is one consolidated case we actually moved to sever the girl's claims at one point about a year ago and that motion was denied so as a procedural matter this is one case and it goes to the appellate courts together and it goes to the lower courts together groups she identified were not legally cognizable and she was not mistreated on account of her membership in the third because ms mclean has refined somewhat her comments to couple of the specific areas of contention here i'm happy to confine mine as well if the effect that any of the judges have any questions about other matters please feel free to interrupt me any time with regard to the family as a particular social group in that instance the court  the board in the agency looked at all of the underlying evidence and found that there was no nexus to membership in what has been identified as a cognizable social claim right in the first instance somewhat somewhat difficult to determine at time was told be careful what she said about the incident she was later told this in september of two thousand and thirteen she was later told by a different gay member that somebody was interested in finishing the job and killing one barito she told the immigration judge that shortly after the shooting one carlos her boyfriend her partner was confronted about carlos was where a bad where about he lied and left for mexico it's important to remember that at the time of the shooting there were three people who took one carlos to the hospital that was her mother that ms reversed and that was one carlos so they gathered him up and took him got him to a hospital and that was the last time the gang ever saw this individual heart then she was confronted by some female gang members are short time later always put on the phone call insisted that she reveal her brother's whereabouts and when she refused again to reveal her brother's whereabouts these female gang members were ordered to beat her and her uncle saw actually said i'm going to get these women to be evil and you're going to change your mind about telling me where your brother is where so she was asked by her own counsel at the hearing why did you leave the door she said because i witnessed the shooting against my brother she told the immigration judge that when she when she was asked why these she thought these women these gang members came to her and took her to the field she said i was with carlos and barito and i saw everything that happened to him she told immigration officers in her second asylum interview in church that she fear gang members would kill her in her home country because she refused to give information of my brothers to the gang members and because the x ray members thought that she would tell people who shot so we have not just  evidence the evidence surrounding these incidents we also have her own testimony during the immigration court hearing that she was targeted not because she's a member of her brother's family but because she was the last best person to know where salvador and i think the most significant of those is a revisit the third daughter remains with her mother the gang members clearly know where they are they have requested extortion money which they ask for from almost everyone that lives in el salvador you pay extortion money for your safety and revisions parents parents have been paying that extension money and so far as this record reflects there have been no threats there have been no there has been no harm sisters two brothers three paternal uncles their wives and their children and another uncle on her mother's side of the family all of those individuals remain and this also i s want to finish something before you get to i just wanted to say i would just like to finish with regard to the next of the family that this issue is is clearly controlled by the board's decision or in decision in matter of l a because in that decision the board caution sufficient to establish a claim based on family membership and in this case in this court income bara can borrow again because the court found that the petitioner had provided no proof that the criminal group targeted members of the family because of those family relationships as opposed to because of some other reason i'd like to turn next judge college into the due process first i'm i'm a little surprised that there's a claim really that these children did not get any process at all i find that a very troubling accusation because i have at the core of the government law problem that the board has never decided a separate claim of the children that she says now is based on a different family theory than what the mother's claim is based on understood let's let me just take th piece by piece first before the immigration judge there was the petitioners counsel never processed the necessity or the importance of reviewing these cases individually ever ever before the immigration judge there was no distinction drawn between the three cases in any of the hearings that were held before the immigration judge in fact petitioners counsel repeatedly referred to these cases as and these applications as derivative if you look at page one seventy seven we're still not making that decision but we think there probably we will be filing them as derivative and also when one eighty three we have independent applications for all three and then they are derivative on the mothers as well in closing argument are going to press that these are individually significant and they have completely different claims are different they're proceeding under different theories i think you have an obligation to make sure that that's clear to the immigration judge what happened with the boy at the level of it was raised to the board and the board decided that they should they found these claims derivative what was raised with the board exactly that they should have been individually adjudicated so she did she did exhaust the claim before the board the question is whether or not in  trying to remember the exact contours but i think that it she felt that they should have had received an individual adjudication but again as the government has made taking this more form than tubbed and here and i'll tell you  here why the first issue where children are treated quite differently are somewhat differently under immigration laws is the kind of persecution of the kind of trauma mistreatment that can rise to the level of past persecution and the government is absolutely horrified by what happened to this family and unfortunately it happens all too often in that country but passed whether or not what had occurred with regard to these children or  reavis and whether that conduct rose to past persecution was never an issue in this case because the agency decided the case on the issue of legal cognize ability or social groups and then with regard to family whether or not she was and there was  nexus between the mistreatment that she experienced and the social group that she was articulating so whether or not the concern on the children is that they might have a different argument on nexus they might into and i'll just tell you why they don't and i'll tell you why it would be futile to send it back because number one although she has claimed a particular social social group of family the board found that she had established no nexus with her family in other words she was persecuted on account of the fact that she w not informing people of where carlos umberto was and i know what they said about the mother but her argument here today is that children could be persecuted simply because the gang wants to gain retribution against the mother yes now that would not be because i think you think that would be because of i don't know about the brother or is that more of a i think it's important to me how to family i think it's important to keep in mind that these children were never threatened directly they were they were witnesses to carlos umberto being dragged into the home with with but with bloody feet they were never touched they were never directly threatened and well if the board had said that was our rationale for rejecting the children's claims then we could consider that we don't have what we also didn't have the evidence that all of her other family members are remaining in el salvador and have not been harmed if this were if it were true iran or that the child of misery the us would have an independent family membership claim then one would expect that mare who is currently with the board's decision was just a fall with the mother i think that it's quite clear before the immigration judge they never pressed the independence of those claims look i think and i think and i think that certainly sending it back to the children at this point would be a futile exercise it would not be likely to change the outcome of the case and i think that because there is no nexus to the family and because we certainly have other eviden not that goes to the heart of her of of this family based claim in general that there is no family based claim here the fact that several members of one carlos his family may still be there or there are people who came for other reasons and the fact that certainly one carlos his family including i'm sorry carlos umberto's family including carlos umberto himself who would not is sort of the heart of all of this they had a major beef with him and they pursued him on that basis and pursued her because she would not reveal his whereabouts have just a little bit more time to go back if i could she there's nothing else i wanted to that i would i would just say again i think that they were not denied due process i think their claims were raised and i think that at the evidentiary stage it's critical to highlight if there was any particular nuance or difference or independence in their theory that the immigration judge should have spent time on and that was not done with regard to tag the target again girlfriend like it's not just touch on that very briefly in the last thirty seconds i have ever review various things that have been cited in the record by petitioners counsel done an admirable job i would just point out that simply discussing the fact that something goes on like the fact that individual girls are targeted by gangs or that target certain gang members want girls to be their girlfriends does not does it not a reflection of a social distinction in the sense that the board has defined it so that the board requires that that  particular society identify a group as discrete and didn't segment within society so having an article that says that this is a phenomenon is not the same well wouldn't that type of evidence be proof or would it be so it would certainly not be proof of social distinction and i would go back to rebus which was the case the petitioners counsel relied on and and sought to not to reavis the ninth circuit identified the fact in the record that the gov the government of that particular country had actually passed laws to protect individuals who are witnesses and who testify showing that that's actually the case in their petition well i think and so my question to your ear is whether there is something in the record indicating that the administration actually looked at any of that information how it dealt with oh i think it's quite clear that the immigration judge if you go back to the decision that the immigration judge did look at the record and did it's always it's always if you go back to the immigration would go through the there she was the immigration judge went chapter and verse through all of the exhibits there was a voluminous record and i don't think we can necessarily fault the immigration judge simply because they didn't cite to us but you wouldn't  omission of evidence this is the lack of evidence and it's quite clear that and i would also point out that a lot of the evidence that petitioner relies on are our discussions of gang girl friends not targeted gang girlfriends target again girlfriends are one step removed from an actual game girlfriend so just because you have a social if you and i can't find a single case where again girlfriends been identified as a social group much less a targeted gang girlfriend which would by the way both be identified only by the really by the eyes of the persecutor and again is is defined by the persecution itself i see it on over my time i greatly appreciate your efforts thank you so much for your time your hon not for us to sit here and say that existence of living family members in el salvador or the fact that the girls were directly threatened should warn a different result that analysis should have occurred as part of an independent individualized evidence in the record that indeed both during the i j a briefing oral argument and the b i a briefing that we did repeatedly make a distinction between the girl's family based claims and sandra i would point you to a our fourth fifteen we argued maria and britney are immutably the children of sandra and the nieces of one they are at risk of being targeted and killed because of that relationship i think that was a pretty clear articulation of the family nexus i described earlier and yet the i and the i j a both failed to address that issue at all going back to the camp to the comments about the gang girlfriend argument i also think it's incorrect to say that the i j a went through the evidence chapter and verse remark in the i j decision that there wasn't evidence of social distinction but there's no analysis of the evidence that i cited to the court earlier and i think if you look at those five or six articles or expert reports that i cited they do in fact reference targeted girlfriends as opposed to women who are already subject to the role of getting a girlfriend and indeed recognized that salvadoran society sees that group targeted girlfriends as a particular persecution just as much as sandra does and i think the supreme court has said in one case that a ten percent chance of persecution can be a well founded fear of persecution and as to the daughter that remains in all salvador i don't think there's any evidence that the gang knows that that sandra's daughter the daughter lives with other family members she has never lived with sandra so i don't think there would be a recognition or perception by the gang the same there would be with maria and britney that this other daughter belongs to sandra and therefore be targeted the amount of