thank you it was morgan russell on behalf of the petitioner derek at gabriel wet i know the court is aware that the government has filed a motion to remain and this case the petitioner does not oppose continues to not oppose well here we understand you rather have that remained of the blues but is it really necessary to remain and in your view in order to well it's it's necessary it's necessary to remain and at least for a little bit more obviously this court record and under this court's law that the agency on remand can do anything but hold that he's met his burden to establish because his past persecution and his current fear even regardless of his past torture  was and will be on account of his real and imputed political opinion i think if the court wants to shoot decision holding that the record compels that determination it certainly can and how do you if you don't have you wouldn't have a problem if we did that now i would have a problem with that  to the board on appeal it holds nearly categorically that severe punishment for the crime of defection from an authoritarian regime constitutes persecution on account of imputed political opinion  think here there unlike in that case there is not a specific statute like there was in cuba rather is the i j a found the law does of eritrea actually permit freedom of travel and freedom of movement but it's an unquoted policy that denies those things and denies exit from the country i think if anything that just shows that this sort of punishment is not for any sort of legitimate prosecution for a non political crime but it's purely a form of political oppression and political persecution to keep people from defecting from this very closed regime so council from your perspective if we were to remain and what walk through what i think are the most compelling parts of the record i mean it to me it does not suffice to just show that there are two ways the evidence can be interpreted it has to be  roman which said because the crime of affection is intended to punish those who exhibit a great form of disloyalty to their homeland we simply acknowledge here which should by now have been apparent to all that a state which severely punished as unlawful departure views persons who leave illegally as four of that case explaining that rodriguez roman shouldn't be limited to cases where there's an actual statute for having departure or defection from the regime but i do want to with the time i have since i i thought is the genesis of his claim was because he requested relief from the national service know he was tortured because they thought that he had helped other people escape and that he was also planning to escape and he also testified that he was warned that further requests to be released from the national service which result in detention  off that sort of earlier and i think that kind of plays into the sort of general nefarious situation he was in the immediate reason he was tortured that he was told was because they suspected him of helping people trying to defect and of being sort of being imputed as a defector but it also was taboo and to the age of national service because it was limited to people who may end from fourteen to fifty five and it was not a general prohibition don't think it makes i don't think it makes a difference well it makes a difference and that is targeted it's it's more clearly tied to his his request to leave national service in the cuban case  it's globally that laws globally apply to all of this it as well here it's not a law and i think that's right it's not a law a lot and i think that the restriction and the punishment for for leaving you know i'm not sure the record is clear that it actually  that it's not actually a law that it's just that his rights are being denied in practice we cite several times in the brief his credited testimony that the eritrean government views leaving the country as a big opposition to the government he repeats essentially the same testimony in that same point which if credited should establish his claim as nexus by itself at page one seventy four to one seventy five and again one seventy six of the record i think notably in his declaration which the i j a also specifically credited and reliant on in other findings and i just decision although not this one is the exploration of various of the government agents when they detained his mother after his escape from the country they told her that he is a traitor to the government and that he and his friends intended to go against the government and betray her people i think the context of why the regime has a policy that's given by the state department reports helps sort of confirm citizens do not have the right to criticize their government in public or private and that the government actively monitors the eritrean the asper at two fifteen that same report although no political parties operated in the country other than the official party citizens living abroad established several several political parties and even a shadow government in ethiopia during the year the government continued to label individuals who participated in political parties other than the ruling parties as traitors rapists pedophiles and traffic s and so i think that that those official state department reports sort of confirm that the government is extremely aware that there is no they've clamped down so toughly on their own country and petitioner's words they've made the whole country a prison and i saw that any opposition will come from outside so they want to control the flow of people outside because they view those people as either real or potential  fairly simple straightforward question here based upon the record and if the court determines that in fact you really have established there's an imputed political opinion then why not ultimately go to the the issue of asylum and withholding well i think you i think that the court could say that there is imputed political opinion established nexus is satisfied as a matter of law the record compels it so i remembered only required for the a first i just wanted to spend a couple of minutes explaining how we got to this situation because this case arrived on my desk just over three weeks ago and as soon as i saw that i realized that we had an issue but just so that you understand we have to go up the chain of command to get authority for a remaining motion we have to go to the client to get authority at each point everyone's arguing about  scope and it just takes time and that's why we didn't file the motion until last week but i apologize it got my attention the case got my attention because in the ten years i've been at well i haven't seen a case where there was a cat finding from eritrea a cat finding i thought this is definitely a different case to me the reason to remain and is to give the board a chance to address clearly and in light of the cuban case which i think is directly on point the the imputed political opinion because i think it's important for the point for the board in the first instance to develop that law and particularly with respect to the future fear point because i think that what everyone missed in this case is the fact that there was a positive cat finding in the past gives him a argument that he has a future fear based on that alone that there's an imputed political opinion as to the future because the government tortured him in the past and i think as a matter of  better to let the board flush that analysis out so you and opposing counsel don't necessarily agree as to the scope of the remaining well we did have a bit of discussion about it and my client always likes to leave it as big as possible i insisted on citing the cuba case so that and i also in the in the in the motion that we filed reference specifically well founded fear as to the future but  counsel position is we should at this point determine that the record compels a finding of nexus than just remain and for the board to exercise its discretion why do you object to that i say i would counsel against it i think that the board should get another chance and i think the board should get another chance and be pointed specifically to the cuba case to make an indeterminant on their case decided to the border region it was and then they didn't deal with it again they  facts like this it seems fairly self evident i will concede the first to concede that the board goof we filed a brief without citing that cuba case and so we appreciate the anything else that's it all right thank you reporter so much one minute you have anything to counsel as i said before you know if the court wants to dispose of it you know just by granting the remained order we continue to not oppose that as i said i think for the reasons already already walked through i think the court can resolve the issue that would mean a little more work for