and that he demonstrated that the persecution he suffered was on account of a protected ground namely his particular social group and the board erred in determining otherwise nd the honduran government is unable or unwilling to control the mara salvatrucha thirteen gang and its violence towards targeted individuals and the board erred in finding to the contrary and finally rd that mr not us established that it is more likely than not so yes your honor i'm sorry to interrupt you thank you for representing mr navas medina i have a quick question it's just a clarification question i think you clarified it right near intro but i just want to make sure below mr navas medina argued for three different social groups and it was three different ways of looking at his family but really the rest of it and it seems the only argument on appeal just so i'm clear and we can focus on that in argument is that the the group the social group that you propose is male members of the novice family am i correct in that it seems your brief laid that out pretty clearly but i just want to be sure that is correct your honor specifically the proposed social group is male members of the novice family who share the novice surname correct ok in so what evidence is there that the evidence that they're not under and society does see the novice family as distinct within society is in that the m s thirteen is so pervasive that their actions and violence towards targeted individuals is so pervasive that it is known when individuals are being targeted so it would be known in the region where mr novices family male members of his family have lived there can i ask you question in this might not be technically but i'm just curious i mean and mr teens known worldwide right as being doesn't that apply to almost everyone in honduras or elsewhere it would your honor the distinction in this case is that mr novices father who was unable search and killed a lead member of the imus thirteen gang during his two days as an officer and that created a sort of notoriety for the novice family you know and it was it's an incident that can member would that make them a social group that qualifies the rival gang because m s thirteen was now hunting them down as part of a gang   his father who was a member who was unable sergeant in the line of duty killed an individual the gang going back to your question your honor i think that the relationship  may have may also reflect those differences in this case in mr novices case he has testified and provided evidence surrounding the fact that death of that gang member that his father killed and they targeted him to fill that debt or or suffer death or or and couldn't care for continuous torture like to torture that he did suffer already  so mr navas testified at the immigration court level and before the board of immigration appeals the written and because see that all the mill members of the novice family it him or  does honduran society treat the now basous male novices the way m s thirteen does i understood what you'd said several d minutes ago in your brief affectively to say well m s thirteen is so pervasive that honduran society must look at people the same way n m s thirteen does i may be overstating but i didn't see that there was any  evidence on this point presented in other words is there an expert or a person who says not what m s thirteen thinks about the novices but that indeed all  society sees people the same way a mess thirteen does your explanation was not crazy but i didn't see any evidence had been presented to support it did i miss something wrong or if i understand your nt i kind of like i can understand the argument and i can say well maybe she's right maybe she's not but was there any evidence presented below that would address that your honor my answer is yes and i respectfully make a distinction between the way that hunter in society sees mr novices family and the male members and the way the m s thirteen sees his family and its male members in that social distinction requires that society of knowledge is that they own or a group but not necessarily that they view that group in the way that the m s thirteen or the perpetrator would be well you you said yes and then you began to spin off into argument and law that is i was  in the record would i look for something that says the argument you've been making that is that if n o m s thirteen treats them as a group in some way hunder and society does and again you society is is very aware of the actions of and that's their teen and inherently when they are aware that a certain family is being targeted there is a sort of  g that they would employ him in dealing with that family this there have to be evidence that we can rely upon because then that goes back to my other question and it you seem to imply this in your brief nine when you're talking about this you start out with a topic sentence that says the family is a particular defined social group in one hundred or in society but there's no evidence of this from which we as a court can conclude that and then naturally any members of society who oppose the status quo and make any attempt to fight against the criminal gang member will carry a suit and present value the implication back to my gang question which is anyone that fights against emmis thirteen we should be better as they act now i suppose social group in here in society because of their notoriety m s thirteen's notoriety alone and that seems problematic member of society i understand and i'm sorry if my question was poor but my point being is what you're saying is the reason they're notorious in honduran societies because m s thirteen is essentially targeting them yet there's the point is then any want to m s thirteen targets could be note considered notorious within a one hundred or in society including rival gangs which would mean an absence you would have to allow rival gangs in furtherance of the group being a family member of of mr not us and that it isn't just that mr know this isn't the person that killed the gang member it was his father and the time that is drawn if i see my time has run but if i may you may complete your answer to church to parse question if your honor mr not this did not kill the lead member of the gang it was his father and as a and and as a result has left in the aftermath this reputation for the willingness of the young i think i think we get the sense of that and so now i'm hearing some scrubbing the ways in the background morning and may have please the court greg mack for the attorney general st of all i just want to acknowledge that this is the son of a murdered police officer and the tough part of the world for law enforcement these are the tough cases that are indeed assigned to the immigration judges and board of immigration appeals and here petitioner did receive two levels of administrative review with respect to his application the immigration tonight those applications and the questions before the court is whether result person will be compelled to reverse those decisions and we submit as we stated in our brief that the answer is no to that question of joining the court with where was a sking questions of my colleague with respect to social distinction as we noted in our brief matter of him e v g a makes clear there has to be some objective evidence of social distinction that the group proposed by the applicant has some distinction in the honduran society and it can't be done by mere testimony it can't be done by a believed in what is inherent in the society there has to be some sort of objective evidence that the court can hang its hat on and that compels the reversal session and there was just no such evidence visited in this case below now matter of him e g also says you can't point to the alleged persecutors as a ground to so that the that your group is distinct within society because after all that then becomes circular and the social distinction criteria basically begins to collapse now my colleague also cited the al gore b decision that decision arose prior to the board's decision in matter  as on the ultimate point really what the spec to nexus is argue that as we noted in our brain the nexus decision was made by the agency and is not noted or disputed and petitioners opening brief so before  the police were in cahoots with m s thirteen and specifically the evidence about the grandparents house going looking for him what's your response to that my response to that arm again is he wasn't there at all during that incident now certainly he says that he gave the gangs his neighbor's address and then the neighbors pointed the gang excuse me neighbors or the police showed up at the neighbor's address and then the neighbors pointed the police to the grandparents address but he wasn't present on this occasion and i'm sorry to interrupt but doesn't that point now that the police i mean as i thinking about it and tell me where i'm wrong it shows the police may be in you can look at that evidence a runs one way that as your honor points out well pours the police rank simplicial certainly say that but that's not the question at this level question actually the record has to compel that conclusion so what we have is the neighbor's point the police if you will to the grandparents grandparents go to the police and police say we had no operation in that area and further if we're dealing with cat we have to also look at whether there's acquiescence there's nothing in the record th  the statement i mean certainly if they're in cahoots and they're doing something they should be doing they're not going to say yeah i mean they're going to try to distance that or you know create some kind of i'm not sure why that doesn't apply that negates the compulsion element of this well in your honor if you were a member of the board of immigration to pills you could go to war with the two other members of the board in argue about that inference but at this level operation that is that judge donald would be right or potentially right if we agreed that if the police's denials were false but your position is the evidence doesn't compel us to believe the police denials are false there are other explanations wreck you're on that's why i started out with it just on the wanted to have that argument with other members of the border she was an immigration judge she could draw back inclusion but at this level the record has to run entirely in the opposite direction and it doesn't because all we have is the grandparents going to the police and to saying simply we didn't have an operation in that area so i think in terms of the overall question with respect to acquiescence in this case we don't have reports petition wasn't president just for after grandparent incident and cat is an extraordinary remedy and we have to really show that the honduran government would acquiesce in this sort of torture and we just don't have that in this particular case i think we pointed to the unwilling and unable determination by the agency in that regard that the macondo in government and in a tough part of the world isn't ever going to combat gang violence and we have to offer also look at the fact that petitioners father was imprisoned at a particular point but there were elements in the honduran guy that worked with him to escape from the jail so there are elements that from that particular piece of evidence showing that there's elements in the honduran government that were willing to come to his father's aid and what i don't see in this record is anything where titian are pressed with the honduran government at any level  wait a minute remember my father my father was murdered because he was working with you our family is in jeopardy and therefore we need the help of the honduran government we don't see any of that going on in this particular case so with whether that undermines any of the positions you've taken with respect to a b or ellie a and secondly has the government sought certain or does it plan to seek certain grace to my knowledge that hasn't that decision has been made yet as far as i know but what's expected the matter of a b in the grace case your court your honor actually has a case on that point want to antonio that says that it basically agrees with matter of a b that the complete helplessness criterion is arbitrary why didn't spile the twenty say later on it because no matter what moniker you put on the unwilling on unable analysis here what do you call a complete helplessness or unwilling unable the answer is still the as the saying that the evidence points to the hunger and government trying to calm back gang violence so what do you call the complete helplessness or unwilling on unable government does emphasize what hunder as small steps it has taken to the league and continues targeting of individuals by imus thirteen this court has pointed out that it is more important to look at the numerous instances when the government has failed to act or even respond as well as the heart of the government failed to prevent and in fact the country conditions that mr navas submitted prove that the government's anti corruption initiative did not go far enough the government institutions that were created did not take sufficient steps to contain high level corruption and were unwilling or lacked professional capacity and resources to investigate arrest and prosecute those involved and to the stated in grace he would hurt the i j a end the poor did conclude in this case that mr navas did not meet his burden of showing that the hunger in government was hopeless and it relies on a standard that has been deemed arbitrary in the case your honour's of mention greece would occur the u s district court for the district of columbia found that the complete helplessness standard is arbitrary capricious and contrary to law and not a permissible construction of the persecution requirement the th circuit to the point of acquiescence the th circuit has interpreted acquiescence to me that public officials have remained willfully blind to the severe pain or suffering that the attackers inflicted upon the victim this ringback comes from europeans i was from this chord she tells and sex willful blindness simply requires that the state actors be aware of the sort of harm inflicted actual knowledge of the harm used by the victim is not required there is also a recent case  people are which speaks to the point of allowing an individual who is seeking asylum or withholding of removal to have an opportunity on the record to discuss why certain  that in looking at the transcript that is lacking in this case we would ask this court to find that mr novices social group of male members of the novice family to be cognizable in that it needs particularities in social distinction also that the honduran government is in fact unable or unwilling to leave the remainder of the cases are submitted on that reach and we will retire to the case conference room