good afternoon madam presiding judge and members of the court i was going to start off with something i had prepared but it seems to me that the very essence of this case if we were to take our comes razor and cut it right down the center would be the issue of due process in relationship to the issues relating to the totality of the circumstances by the judge in making determinations of credibility where his decision may be impacted by his bias and cherry picking of specific items in relationship to find lack of credibility also the issues that relate to whether or not under the real i d act that we deal with in relationship to what is the duty and responsibility of  a immigration judge who is in who says he has problems with the current issues of credibility can i can i ask you just to pass here for a minute and see if you can help me try and see if we're all on the same page here not with respect to the actual determinations that were made by the immigration judge and it looks like he made an adverse credibility finding but it's not clear to me the on that if your view of that because he does go on and make some statements related to the actual merits so what is your view my view is he didn't make that step he didn't do that step he didn't say i go but in light of the fact that there was in credibility's i find that certain things are credible or not credible and when you look at what was actually going on and one thing i'd point out is that respondent in their brief page forty seven line ten indicates that the actions of the immigration judge in regards to our due process argument should be not considered because of mario morrow maryla versus sessions but but is it is is it your view i guess it looks like the at the acknowledge that the petitioner here suffered harm but it's not clear to me if the i j a or the b i agree that she was you know raped and i'm trying to figure out do they agree about the level of harm terms in terms of the harm that she suffered and your honor that was one of the problems i was going to address because i don't see it either when i look at the record all i see is if that if he's saying she made no harm his determination that no harm existed can not fall from the record itself because there is no there is medical documentation that supports the rape and the beatings and in this case it seems to me that you just can't say that she wasn't harmed even if you go back and you look at everything that took place ace her testimony is very consistent about what happened when she was taken and other than her testimony is there other evidence that she suffered harm at the hands of the government well yes there's well that she suffered harm first her there's the documentation by the by the hospital itself and the medical treatment that she received in addition to that there are the statements of her mother her brother her brother in law i mean her mother her sister her brother in law and several other people that knew her at the time and indicate that she was involved in setting up this this organization which  diverge by just a little bit here as i read both the decision by the immigration judge and by the immigration appeals both held both to prove given underscored ability finding neither as i read what they say did they says neither of them said if true does does not rise to the level of persecution they didn't say one way or the other no they don't so the only thing in court one of us is the adverse credibility finding could you address the question and i'm not sure how much difference it makes but the i j a in the b thing made a lot of difference as to whether or not there was a third person in that building you know i i have that argument because i don't think it makes a difference because the question is is there three people or two people in the building if there's three people in the building it indicates there's more people that were involved in the situation and when she says there's only two people in the building it takes away from the scope or the i think what they're intimating is if she says there's two but there were really three and somehow she's not credible well that brings us to the well hearing i just finished the question sorry thank you that brings us really to the heart of this is there anything in the record that suggests that another other which you're very close in english that there is some similar linguistic relation in armenian and i think that was the point that was inquired into at the hearing and they asked the translator to respond to that and the immigration judge said no disallowed him from being able to do that which goes to the initial decision to disallow the translator from doing that i gather because all we had were the two different english translations we did not at that time have the underlying armenian documents that underline document as i understand it was provided as part of the supplemental evidence but nobody ever went back and asked the question once they had that document in front of them that's not translate we have a document we have a dog nobody translated it yeah yeah i see your point well i mean i don't know what my point is you know i don't know what the legal implications of that are but it does seem a very odd thing where this is a flashpoint at the hearing and then here we are and we're left with no answer to the big question and your honor one thing i would say is it doesn't matter to a woman when she's being raped how many people are in the room and the transcript it was but that's but that's not the point the point is if this is a made up story and she can one of the reasons you might think it's a made up story she can't keep the story straight  and if the trans in english translation is accurate at one point she writes well there were two people there and another person comes into the room making it three but her testimony from the i j a was absolutely consistent and very clear she says no there were only two now i don't know whether that makes any difference or not but but the argument is well she can't remember the story therefore it's on therefore it's not true but your honor i also think that it goes to the issue of whether or not in significant difference because a good efficient if this were pre will idea that's absolutely right because it simply does not go to the heart of the heart of the story but i can and it may or may not be a conflict really depending on what the answer is in terms of tracing it through declarations now i know one of the early ones was thrown out because she said that had some problems so do we look at her testimony at the hearing plus her written submission well i think you can take a look at her her testimony at the hearing her written submission and also to a certain extent it's it inconsistency or i don't even really think it makes much difference how many people are in the room all right well we clearly have difficulty with the translation because her lawyer i think i was not you at that at that point that's correct really i just  to bring brings in a second translation the first translation entirely leaves out what she claims is in the armenian that she ran into the rapist at some later time well i'm for i'm not finished left out because at the very beginning the notes of the credible fear interview she says exactly that that she'd run into and still is not a leader made up story so it's obviously got some problems with the translator certainly the first one rather we got problems with the second one i don't know it clearly your honor i mean the asylum interview you're right says that the exact same thing yeah all right thank you all right police court victor lawrence on behalf of the acting attorney general this court did i disposition for review is substantial evidence supports the agency's adverse credibility determination to do run through that substantial evidence and i think we're supposed to just look at what the b r a said correct b s decisions was before the court right and in a discount of some of the things that the i j a used to justify his adverse credibility findings i'm just going to look at what the i j a said supports the embers credibility to what the b i said supports it that's accurate supplemented  you know that you have to show persecution on account of a political activity in this case that immigration judge questioned whether or not she was really engaged in a political activity and asked her to supplement with certain items such as the bylaws of this organization that she said that she created that she said she gave to did ministry of justice in armenia as well as photographs that demonstrate police presence at rallies when she couldn't come up with that cooperation the immigration judge correctly determined when she came up with some corroboration she came up with a statement by a member of the organization yet stated i'm unwilling to give my name for fear of being punished by the armenian authorities however her lawyers and the name of the person is x so the lawyers can give us the name but i understand that the lawyer himself is not capable of doing the affidavit but we do have the two statement that is if you believe it the statement co operates the fact if you believe the statement which is unsigned inundated and not attributed to a particular person at least in the body of the declaration write it  that there was this organization doesn't name the organization that this independent youth it just says that there was this organization right but she she claimed that there were bylaws and there are pictures of police abuse at at rallies and the and she even said that i believe it's page one hundred of the record that she had those photos and then there she never produced them so the immigration judge found that this reflected on her credibility as well but they had to fully answered the original question from  court there's the lack of cooperation but there's also the demeanor evidence which the board agreed with with respect to the immigration judge's findings as well as the inconsistent and the demeanor evidence could you read for me and basically the demeanor evidence you just heard she was  know but i guess that's i can read the transcript to see whether the answers are obvious of or non responsive true but you know as this as this court has indicated in the mains to sit in immigration judges are in the best position to assess demeanor and other credibility seems like she couldn't answer long pauses the immigration judge then thinks all the t s not the who or whoever the petitioner doesn't know well you know what they're talking about really they can't come up with a response here the knot responsiveness was not that kind of non responsive message was he you know she responded and then he didn't believe her so that i'm not sure that that turns on demeanor as much as it does was the evidence to support that we can point to in the in the record in the in the transcript two things in response to that first the real i d act itself notes that quote an alien's to mean or candor or responsiveness are re word in edgewise on answering that with the interruption so i don't know if that's being non responsive or not well look at pages one ninety seven one down the eight of the record for instance where he's asking about the photographs that she submitted with with her asylum application and he says and the immigration judge is trying to understand what are what do these photographs show and it took several iterations of that question for her to admit that those photographs that she submitted  application don't show any harm or persecution by our media and police never went in the end they she says that what they don't show they showed the protests were happening that's what i think the bottom line was correct not necessarily a police response to that but that there are such protests right yes but but again that those two pages that i indicated first she's indicating that that judge is specifically asking what do these photos shi show and she starts talking about other photos that that she submitted to the ministry of justice it took took a while before the immigration judge got her to clue into exactly what do these particular photo i show so so he felt that she is being non responsive the other i mean you know it's hard to get a perfect witness any of us who've been a problem here know that and i mean she she they answered the question now maybe in the end they don't show much because they show these people immigration judge looked at that testimony with respect to the photos looked at the testimony with respect to the byelaws words asking her questions questions about that and wasn't getting specific answers even though she was heavily and claimed to be heavily involved in creating organization but remember in the mains this is and i know it's a little different your honor with respect to the long pauses that was present in the main citizen but here again it's immigration judge looking at the witness as she's trying to answer these questions and making a reasonable judgment on her credibility and you know one thing that the court said and means is that the immigration judge should be very careful in if he's going to find adverse credibility and demeanor and response to specifically document those particular instances and that's what the immigration judge tried to do here well i know that i completely understand that point you're making is well taken but it's been categorized as demeanor when you know the case of a non responsive i'm not quite sure this fits as neatly as maybe you think it does because she did produce i mean it's a question of you know whether there's substantial evidence over all what we have to determine and the question is did she produce things here and the the specific finding of the i j a is that oh because she didn't produce what i wanted to see which i think goes to the merits he's finding an adverse can credibility determination and i think it's this is kind of confusing how the i j a and the b i a are presenting this to us because it's not clear to me that it seems like they're complaining the credibility with the merits decision here i don't think so you honor and here's why you remember we're looking at this under substantial haven't treeview so we're looking at whether or not the immigration judge and the agency provided had specific evidence in the record to support its decision now you might see and i think i've heard some some indication of it other areas in the record where you think well this might support the petitioner and here we have what the immigration judge is saying supports the idea that she's not being credible evidence review you have to determine in order to deny that to grant the petition for review you have to determine that the record compels a different conclusion i think i don't think the record doesn't i think i heard you say an earlier point in hearing you meant that the i a asked as corroborating evidence that she produced additional photographs did you say that yes where does the i j a say that so in the november sixteenth two thousand and fifteen order at page four fifty six of the record one of the things he indicated there i believe are photographs and you say that she said she had them yes at page one ninety eight in the record she said she had photographs she said she handed in the photographs with the registration that's what she said no and then the registration never came back which she also said if you look at one ninety eight she says there you there are some lines two and three i actually had different other photos that i don't have right now but the line before it she says i could submit that those photos to the court she says she has said she doesn't have access right now but there's no indication at least in this callil equate that she's not she's never going to get access but quickly before my time runs out i did want to address the three versus two yes that was my next question because i'd like you to weigh in on that and i've read all this testimony i actually have trouble seeing where it's inconsistent like i'm looking at a r two seventy and i read the statement but i don't doesn't look inconsistent to me so help me out how you get to it with why and why you imply that that means three not two well so i think i laid this out pretty clearly i think in my brief page thirty six of respondents brief she indicates at page two seventy one that two officers came to her jail cell and then those agents referring to the two officer escorted her two to a car to a basement cetera and then she says she indicates why they just told me that he that no one could find her there but then she says after talking about the two agents who escorted her that another  in uniform entered the room and he was she was sure that it was the last agent who was the boss if you read this testimony objective lee it indicates that there were three individuals you with me i'm at for one a ok i'm in the middle of that paragraph in the middle we drove for about an hour once we arrived the agents escorted me from the car to a basement with no windows i was frightened and could not understand what was happening one of the agents told me that no one can find or hear me after again for some time in that basement now it's not clear that the two agents stayed with her while she's staying in the basement so one of the agents told me no one can find me after staying some time in the basement another agent in uniform entered the room now that might have been one of those first two i don't know i was sure the last agent was the boss the agent told me blah de blah so it's not clear to me that she's talking about three testimony she's very clear and very consistent saying there are only two in her testimony correct but i don't see here that it's clear that she's saying that there are three but but but you're out of despair with me just for second said the immigration judge specifically asked her about this what he found to be an inconsistency she responds and she says no there were only two and he says well why did he say another why did he use that word another after referring to two agents seemingly implying are three she says it's a translation issue he says well wait a second you know you had a chance to revise his declaration and she doesn't speak english it's just you can't read his english but she said in her testimony that she had the second declaration read back to her so that said that she agreed that it was correct well maybe but maybe she thought i mean i just read it in english and it's not on is not clear to me that there were talking about three and we don't know what it says in armenian ok but what you're under the whole basis of substantial evidence review is yes you could you could read that i could read that just as well and come up with the idea well you know maybe it's unclear whether it's three or two but but the issue is the immigration judge who had the ability to observe her demeanor as she answered a question specifically her response considered it this court requires it what is her response as a translation difficulty and he didn't believe it well he didn't believe and he also says she also has in translation difficulty when what she meant was something entirely different was less something entirely else was left out that is there's really no meeting but so she uses a translation difficulty or maybe her translator uses the word translation difficult in a very but does the record compel an opposite conclusion i think of light with respect to the two and three may and there may be some other things but with respect to the two and three as i read the english that the judges rely on in order to find a consistent in order to find an inconsistency i don't read it and i'm just reading the english as necessarily producing the inconsistency you know i'm just reading the language as well as the i j i mean i i don't need to defer to demean or anything else would both of us just read in the language sure  t i think your honor could can read that and understand where there's a confusion when you have you're talking about two people in the sea another enters the room so that's what the immigration judge asked about and when he was consistent in saying there were only t that's true but that combined with the demeanor evidence that he pointed out before about how she has been unresponsive then combined with the fact that this is a persecution claim on account of political activity and they asked for a bylaws in which she said that she once had they asked for pictures that she said she  had and she did not provide that and room and you know this order came out after the close of evidence where the immigration judge was considering everything said you know i don't quite have enough here to to to to determine whether this was on account of political activity so he asked in that order of page four fifty six for to dismantle evidence now i wanted to address your honor's point if i may i know him well over but if you ask point last question your honour's your honest question referring to judge morgan was it was whether or not there was an additional finding here on persecution no that in our view the immigration judge and the board never made a additional finding that even if she was credible she didn't this didn't rise to the level of persecution rather the finding was i don't believe she was credible and i'm going to take her testimony away and just look at the other objective evidence in the record to see what i have here as far as whether or not that makes a claim of persecution and you look at the fact that there were some medical records that said that she got a pregnancy test and that she was in a disoriented state not sure that those were the exact words but that was the gist of it and he said and he looked at what was what else was provided and he said no this evidence that doesn't me credibility finding is not supported and that she is telling the truth do we need to remain and under ventura to see if this rises to the level of persecution because it's obvious to me that it does but do we need to remain for that conclusion from the i j or the