of a young man who was threatened by gangs in his home country of el salvador she would never have herself been threatened by gangs and she would not currently be terrified of being returned to el salvador wilner was threatened by the m s thirteen who turn extended their threats to the petitioner mystery continue the primary petitioner in this case we contend that mr reed has continued it was persecuted on account of her membership in the social group of family and that was at least one central reason why she was persecuted i'll say at the outset that for a plethora of reasons i'll discuss this case should be vacated reminded to rectify an entire series of errors that the little courts committed while this case is about a woman who fled for her life afterwards we see even death threats by gangs it's also about much more than that this case presents dishonorable court with the opportunity to rule on matters of law of great importance regarding how asylum cases will be decided moving forward in this circuit and possibly beyond st this court can join at least eight other sister courts of appeal and holding that family relationships do constitute a particular social group for asylum purposes and nd the court can  both by the b s a and by this court since two thousand and seven further as the th th and th circuit courts of appeal have done this court can clarify how that standard can apply in this case in these sets  put another way denying this petition for review would place this circuit in conflict with at least three other circuits that have sided with this petitioner on this issue of nexus around the sets of facts the th seven dollars eleven cents circuits and again under the constitution article one section eight it's uniformity certainly favored in the immigration laws there are at least two which are already there already a circuit split on the family group i'm not aware of one your honor is far as i that court did say in the very last paragraph that that i mean it sounded like the way they put it was a that was not at odds with the presidents of this court so you know i mean it's not been established in this court i'm not the this court felt it necessary for you know to remain on that basis but they also remained it for l e a you know at the attorney general's aliah decision for more particularized analysis on the particular social group which we can certainly discuss shortly the other issue that that this court that presents itself in this case is how is the at least one central reason nexus analysis to be applied in cases such as this where family member ship is a particular social group s cognizable social group in l e a matter of alien two thousand and seventeen the border is your decision where they didn't make any bones about the fact that family was a particular social group but they did night nexus on case backs very different from the of our case in that case there was a father who owned a store and a drug cartel approached the father saying hey we want you to allow us to sell drugs at your store and he refused and so they went to the son who had independent presumably to also allow for that to happen in the court said look you don't have an x it's not because of your relationship with your father that we're denying you that you were threatened it was because your of your independent authority to allow them to sell drugs at that store and that was the primary reason why that was the that was the main reason and your relationship with your father was not even at least one central reason in this case your honour's there's no other possible reason that the games could have threatened independent things that the gangs or perpetrators could get from them i'll just i'll speak to this court in here is my hero up this court denied denied relief to a woman who was the sister of a guy who was threatened and then they threatened her and she claimed that she was part of a family member her family membership was because of the brother but what she was being threatened for was that gangs were actually or the perpetrators were trying to get specific information out of her and so the court ruled it didn't matter that she was a sister she with that the fact that she was a sister's tangential which is part of the legal analysis it was tangential or insubordinate or i should say i didn't support it was tangential or superficial or it wasn't primary and so they said irrespective her relationship to that person they would have still threatened because she had the information they need it in our case there is nothing whatsoever that ms superiors continue to continue to has except for her mother son relationship with wilmer that could have been this is shocking  laid exactly what you want to do and the reason that you want us to give or do with what you want us to do thank you judge all right let me tell you what a few things are if you'll give me a few moments those are a couple of things one is i think vacate this decision a reminder to the board to apply the proper legal standard the board of immigration appeals decision it was just less than a page in one paragraph essentially what the board said was they count they they count this as a means to an end a means to an end analysis as if you know they were targeting the mother as a means to an end and that's insufficient to establish a claim a means to an end analysis is the wrong  but it's also not the one dominant reason or a primary the primary reason there could be numerous central reasons now maybe not one hundred dollars but at least one central reason and that's actually the language of the statute in the matter of j b n the board's decision in two thousand seven that really helps articulate understand the real i d act provisions really talks about a bit of the congressional history in the talks but at one point they were even going to say a central reason but they even kind of dampened that and said at least one central reason because of the issue of mixed motives you know as human beings people just don't have one motive and they were trying to recognize that in the law that look you know people could have numerous motives i mean gangs i mean i know that the argument keeps but getting thrown about that gangs are try expand the criminal enterprise of course they are but that doesn't mean that there aren't other reasons that if you what they do so st getting back to your question judge i'm sorry yes so please we need to really we'd like for the court to remain on to the board of immigration appeals to apply the proper legal standard the nd thing we would like for the board this court to do is to also keeping in mind of course sort of a contract with the st thing the but for analysis that there is no other reason that ms so we just continue it would have been attacked or or threat i should it used a wrong standard with the nexus analysis or is it because you think that the facts are so one way that it couldn't know it got it just got it wrong your honor i would say maybe both i think it's clear that the wrong standard was used the immigration judge in the board of immigration appeals opinion both of those opinions conflate particular social group with the nexus analysis st of all and i'll get to that in just a moment but i don't think they looked at the record properly so i mean to say that the criminal enterprise was the reason again is it's they're setting up an either or distinction that's not that doesn't exist in the statute the statute doesn't allow for either or it allows for many motives for mixed motives and i also think chad i need to print this one into that you've just given us and i think you're going to give us a three are one in to see totally separate standalone reasons to re  and or do they have to you have to hit a home run on all of the bases to get are going to man i think we can do any one of the reasons i will discussion or honor and i would say to be fair there's they're somewhat intertwined  specifically speak to that factually from the record as well as talk about the legal standard in point one that i made that the legal standard that was at the lower court that was applied was wrong ok yes there are three or is that it well i  particular i's case by case and then also of the particular social group both the immigration judge and the b s decision in this case they conflated that and they never actually arrived at whether the particular social group was  there's two ways we can look at that your honor one ways they could just we could just assume that maybe they assumed that family membership is a particular social group that's the case then we manage it for that basis obviously it doesn't make sense but to the degree that they didn't do that she's being threatened but the truth is there's a lot of moms who have no influence on their sons and there's a lot of moms who do as well other people who do those people have influence over you know mr x who are not related and given that the sister has been left influence she has her we're in now oh any member of the x family is going to be killed because they're a member of the family it's we want to put pressure on this guy to join our gang and we think this lady's the lady to do it as opposed to the sister a brother a cousin an uncle somebody yes thank you joe chance let me answer that question i think that's a fair point you're raising let me just point the court to  circuit decision from twenty three thousand that we cited in our briefing and in that case it's almost identical to the current case of a mother in el salvador was threatened because her son wouldn't join the gangs in the case the court said that these threats were directed at her not because she is her mother and she has the mother but because she exercises control over her son's activities draws a meaningless distinction under the specs it is therefore unreasonable to assert that the fact that hernandez or son's mother is not at least one central reason for the persecution so that's helpful so you know we have the extra piece of the sister being ok so we know that it's not like the game has said we are now going to go and get every member of just continue a family and kill them because he didn't join our our gang that would be the family but here they leave the sister just fine and go after the mother because  it's not and it's not ridiculous to inclusion and given our differential standard view is not ever be required conclusion that it's because she's a member of the family right that i think your judgments what i to your are is this court has been one of the few courses sometimes look at it look at issues like that or look at factors like that i know that for example in the th circuit there's there are a couple  cases holding that you know st of all say there's nothing in the asylum statute that says that you have to look at every member of that social group to see whether they're ok or not we're looking at the specific person the th circuit just talk about this circuit versus holder i'm sorry in saying versus bar this court looked at the fact that there was this gentleman who was so escaping religious and political persecution from india and the rest of his family was there and the court agreed with what you're saying you are stuck with the rest of the families there how can we say that your you know you should get this relief but in that case that was distinct because he was see they all had that political affiliation and they all have that religious of you know affiliation so there are if you're saying that if that partition was saying that he was prepared to cuba because of his religious and political beliefs well then sure those people could easily be persecuted as well and how are they safe but in this case your honor was distinct is i understand that fighting with the sister is still there but their goal was to recruit he was they are today and is there any evidence of that your honor i don't think there's evidence of that in the record what i do know is when they came here what was asked in the immigration court at the testimony was is she still there and the answer was yes she's still there the other brother and sister i think there were two a brother or sister who also came and they're both in the united states as well as unaccompanied minors whether it should go bad and basically was said in that case that even assuming that the matter of a b altered the statics standards for asylum that insults police was not entitled to rema because under matter of a r c g the easier burden she failed to satisfy it seems like it's very unlikely that the agency would on the immediate family of  symbol and so i'm wondering if under the agency very unlikely under either any any standard so i'm wondering if it's futile your honor what i would say about that is i don't know to me it in response what you're saying i think there's substantial evidence for evidence in the record indicates that there wasn't really any other reason and if you look at the matter of then you know even your security at least one central reason had to be the the mother son relationship i mean if they want to say there was some other reason ok fine but that doesn't eliminate the fact that this was at least a the agency clearly assumed without deciding a family was a congress will group and move to that access germination in this case the record shows two anonymous threats to the door of the lead petitioner she does say exactly what the contents were but she said the gang members wanted to extortion and one person recruited two in school threats to the sign trying to recruit him and trying to extort money a member of their particular social group  remain safely in el salvador as judge trades pointed out all of this was simply insufficient to meet their burden of showing nexus to a protected ground i realize that there are some in the th circuit case with the but for but the board and the agency relied on l e a one whose nexus framework was not changed by only a two and that requires the means to the end analysis and here even petitioners she's dealing with kenya we view that as easily distinguishable has the court noted in that i j didn't even mention particular social group did not explain whether they were assuming it was  opposing counsel pointed out the agency had also can plated the son's claim with the mother we don't have that situation here because the derivative beneficiary here did not file a separate asylum application and did not even  we don't we don't believe that remained is necessary and we don't can i interest there does seem to be to me a little bit of confusion where the mother was threatened because there's allegedly because her sit son refused to join the investor team but then says that because the son was not targeted for the family reason the nexus doesn't so it's the mother's nexus that is that issue not the son's nexus isnt it that's true but it's a little confusing because the social group that was proffered actually revolves around the sun and immediate relatives of the son st as immediate relatives of the mother and i think is that's why it's ok i'm sorry i said go ahead i know you're i'm sorry i write i think that that's why it reads a little bit as a it's here no in fact i believe he just said that he did not believe that that was present like but i'm asking if it is and so and that is a basis for us to send it back if there's a conflation so i'm go off on something that was not raised in the b i a or in our court and just roll all that there were no one raised that i don't want to question the authority of the court but i think that argument's been waived at this point it could have been raised in supplemental briefing and it was and it could have been raised on direct direct using but  i don't think anyone is arguing for that at this point and are you aware of authority that would say other than a jurisdictional point we can just wake up and raise something ourselves and to be i appeal no i am not ok but if we believe that there is some error  to what is troubling you that would be great i don't want to take your time right now don't have the page numbers right here but so you believe that that's not present and we don't have to worry about that is that correct my reading of the decisions was that it was evaluated in terms of she received the threats because they wanted to retrieve her son and exterminated from both of them and that that was simply insufficient for an excess because they had criminal motives and that was why they threats on her door and that's the only thing the threats were anonymous she doesn't know exactly who sent them she testified that she assumed it was someone at her son school who is a gang member but that was that there's really not a lot of testimony specific testimony in this record on there and so i would argue they have not met their burden is there so is there any evidence that it's for a different property by a cartel a drug lord wanted to quote unquote possessed the wife and in that case the judge the court specifically says that you know they're compelled to remain and because this means to an end analysis doesn't make court said you know the go the argument goes he was not persecuted because he is a member of the catalinas immediate family because as her husband he was the one person preventing the cartel from forcibly recruiting her we c that this argument draws a finer distinction than we can discern and as in hernandez of all us a case i mentioned earlier gonzales about his relation to his wife was the reason he and not someone else was targeted i would just once again contend your honor th is so clear on that i mean it's at least one central reason there is nothing in the wreck that could indicate any other reason that ms serious continue no it was harmed a couple of other things i want to mention i do want to just say the point if if the court will allow me to point i'd like to make your honour's is there is one other point on that should be the case should be remanded for it's a fact issue the immigration judge at the record at page forty two says that because there was no nexus she's not  this person doesn't have a well founded fear of subjective or object of returning but the nexus analysis st of all the particular social group analysis wasn't necessarily conducted it's left very vague nd of all the nexus was improperly determined because of the wrong standard and because of not looking at the substantial evidence of that record and therefore you can't go to the next step and even determine well founded if your future persecution because the st two steps weren't properly done so the court this court needs to  major points i wanted to make i mean we're not in pain you know there were two independent reasons that the kid became a big the case was remanded the courts said ok there was the conflation with the mother son we're not claiming that here there's nothing like that but there's also the issue of having the particular social group be properly analyzed according to the attorney general's elite decision to the extent that in this case you like i said there's two ways of looking at it you can either have it be that both the lower courts assume the i j a to be i assume that the family social group particular social group was met the membership was a particular social group or they just conflated it like the attorney general did in his early decision and didn't properly address it to the extent that that would be important for the nexus anal to apply and to move forward this court to be man on that basis as well but this court hasn't numerous bases bases and they don't all have to be it could just be even one of the reasons that we've articulated today you are is on a very narrow ground at least at the very least i don't know if this is the problem but if you look in the upper right hand corner you can make this a group and then you can see all of us and you have seen this tries if you've got it on the one word just use talking is a u c then you wouldn't say or because she's not this case is submitted we appreciate the arguments of counsel and thank you very much thank you judges thank your hono