and protection under the convention against torture the facts in this case are not in dispute mr martinez is a salvadoran woman a mother who stands to be killed because of her efforts to shield her son who was then only ten years old from the m thirteen she stands directly in the line of fire because of her membership in the particular social group of media that family and her in a group as laurie fine group was presented below as a media the immediate family of t to r t got martina's as the sun in this case she stands in the line of fire because of her membership in that particular social group as well as her imputed political opinion the judge here f consider one of these grounds entirely and committed clear error by ignoring three uncontested and critical facts that establish the nexus between her social group and her persecution the immigration judge held that  thirteen was motivated to harm miss martinez exclusively because of her interference with their efforts to recruit her son and in so halting he overlooked three facts the st fact is that the gang in fact threatened to kill family literally using the words we will kill your family before miss martinez took any steps to protect him the nd is that of the universe of people took steps to protect no way it was only she who was threatened by the m s thirteen and in fact the judge went beyond that and speculated that other individuals who took similar steps to protect no way would have been similarly threatened ignoring the uncontested record evidence that there were people who took speak to that i agree with that as i think you can tell from my brief in this area that the judge made in this case was he placed entirely too much weight on the number of times and her children were threatened as well as the fact that they did not suffer any physical harm but he did that without considering who was making the threats and the credibility and likelihood that i would go back to the asylum argument though for a moment because this court has told us and mendez versus holder that the agency commits an error of law by overlooking facts important to the proper application of legal standard and hearing the legal standard that was improperly applied was the one central reason legal standard it is impossible that the judge properly applied this standard because he failed to consider evidence that in fact supports mi because it was part of a family but because they wanted to go after people who were resisting their recruitment and that that's not  true well i think the government's argument is another way to phrase that is that this was a means to an end that they were targeting her so that no way would be forced to join their gang but in concluding that they overlook these facts that i mind before that she was targeted before making efforts to protect him that she was targeted in a way significantly different different than those than others who did also try to protect him  that the family continued to be singled out for persecution following her departure from the country these facts demonstrate that in addition to the motive of resisting recruitment something else was also going on and that something else was her membership in her particular social group of her family and it is only by overlooking those facts that the agency could have concluded that there was only one motivating  factor in in the briefs i discuss a number of cases decided by the th circuit in the th circuit and i discussed those because those courts of appeals apply the one central reason standard just as this court does they require that the central reason not be tangential incidental superficial or play a minor role in the end we get that language from the board of immigration appeals and and the th in the th have considered cases with identical issues where a mother tried to protect her son from force recruitment or a husband trying to protect his wife from forced recruitment or a brother who was targeted because of his relationship and in those cases the th and the th talked about this claim you would have to show who's burden is it to show that the government would acquiesce and protect it's the applicant's burden so the individual seeking because both likelihood and acquiescence are important to determining whether somebody is eligible for this humanitarian protection and the error committed by the judge in this case gets to likelihood rather than thank you your honors may it please the court my name is ever shot i represent the government i'd like to start with the possibly the issue that's concerning you the most which is the convention against torture from what i just heard i think that if you keep in vis case now i know it isn't your fault but i must say i am leagues remotely troubled by a case which is complicated events your position  torture may be winning one and everything else but to treat this case as a summary case seems to me really extraordinary so just by way of information probably i understand your honor thank you thank you for mentioning that on the actual merits of the case given where we are now on the phone merits again the standard of review is substantial evidence true what she said about being threatened in your own weapons the things that were said correct that's absolutely correct your honor but the question is whether or not that's enough now looking specifically whether  as a matter of law it is enough to be to show the likelihood of torture when somebody says i will kill you and your son and they're after of a you say i will rape your daughter and rip her unborn child from her womb and these people then leave before unfulfilled threat now you're correct your honor as you said before people don't need to wait around but i think it's important to look at the context here el salvador is in the midst of an ongoing wave of crime that is tragic that is devastating but that is not by definition meaning that everyone in the country who has a threat from a gang member has reached the has reach the standard for cats if you look at what the judge said here the immigration judge he emphasized that there was continue to live there and there's nothing in the record indicating that they were harmed so they weren't even friends wouldn't make any difference on the issue of torture if when they frightened  this petitioner they had also slapped her how would that increase the likelihood of torture because we i j a didn't go the fact that there was no physical and that i'm just trying you know realistically what is it that is makes it likely that a certain event will happen and how does the nature of the threat honor i don't think a slap by itself would be enough but at some point there would be an off you're absolutely right about that the line doesn't necessarily always laid out clearly in the president but when there is a smear threat like what we had here that's not enough i think it's also important to look at the larger cultural phenomenon going on in this case specifically with the people who are involved here angie the older daughter said that criminality increases day by day knowing that he said that in his written statement in her written simoneau way the son said in his written statement that other people receive the same sorts of threats that he received these are not as tragic and heart rending as these incidents are these are not anything that are so unique were a mere threat can end up turning into a likelihood especially given the substantial evidence standard  here actually goes to the severity of threat rather than to the acquiescence and that alone is sufficient especially under the substantial evidence review standard on asylum i would like to point out one thing to so we can focus in on precisely what was done here in this press when she argued said that the threats were made to the mother even before she had resisted again i want to point to what happened to the other students no way the son said that other students receive the exact same sorts of threats that he received these are threats that actually lead the principal to flag that two other students have been threatened and this march and then lead to the shutting down the school or the meeting about school i should say ms word she knows herself testified that everyone in the town was scared whether they had children or not this was something that was rampant and has no limiting factor based on the nuclear family  son given the threat that was made to ms martinez herself and this is one factor i really do want to emphasize in the entire immigration court proceeding there's only one spot in the record where  so you said that the gangs started with you can you explain what you mean by that answer so i left my house i was heading to work and they were waiting for me they stopped me they told me that they knew i was protecting no way and that they were going to kill me question did they say anything else answer yes they told me they're going to kill me because i was protecting no way that's the it that's it that's the only direct evidence we have of what the gang members told her when they threatened her and as this court said in the car your case which judge pooler wrote that is the best evidence that we can have of the intent of a persecutor very briefly the other issue which has come up is the issue of political persecution as we argued in our briefs that was not sufficiently raised to the immigration judge in the multiple opportunities that ms martinez as a lawyer had to fly the issue in his closing argument and the later submission and writing fit in then thank you a number of things your honor st of all the obviously disagree with regards to the standard of review as we have repeatedly said the facts in this case are undisputed this court has repeatedly held of review is to novo with regards to whether we waived our political opinion claim or not we vehemently disagree the agency has decided in two cases one in two thousand and eighteen called matter of w y c n h l b that an asylum applicant is required to provide quote clear indications of which enumerated grounds she relies upon in seeking relief we've provided those clear indications by marking the box on the asylum application and by providing testimonial and documentary evidence that support our political opinion claim the reason we have a record before this court is because we provided documentary evidence that support the claim the reason this court can even get to the question is because the record supports this claim indicating that we clearly raised it we also fully developed it before the board of immigration appeals and not only did they decline to address it but they did not in any way suggest that we had waived the argument so to suggest that we've waived it now is i think misplaced in terms of what our own agency precedent has told us with regards to i'm sorry with regards to captain mr shelton has spent some time talking about generalize after facing individualize threats these status of generalized by allan's had long preexists at her individualized threats and it was only when she knew that her life and the life of her child was in grave danger that she in the district court then you can make any over arguments those vets mean that you could bring in additional evidence as to social group it sounds to me as if if it once goes back even if we are doubtful about whether you have made out that case you would then have an opportunity to bring in more evidence that this was not