is the purely legal question of whether a set of uncontested facts as relayed by a witness in the immigration judge found fully credible and completely consistent with even the government's factual recitation whether these facts established as a matter of law past persecution or it well founded fear of future persecution either of which merits asylum under the controlling totality of the circumstances as a matter of law the undisputed facts here do warrant asylum but the immigration judge and the board of immigration appeals misapplied the law to this undisputed constellation of facts the decisions below erroneous we minimize a factual record that shows an escalating persecution of a political journalist as merely to unlawful detentions and a beating which knocked the man unconscious for merely associating with journalists but the undisputed facts show much more that not only was mr martinez twice jailed without charge and beaten unconscious on the street by government agents he also showed an inability to earn a living he showed an inability to relocate within cuba and he showed the inability to permissibly travel outside of cuba and all of them were connected to his political journalism the immigration judge however treated mr martinez as someone who was merely associated with journalists and not himself a journalist the court wrote that's a factual finding it's a clearly erroneous factual front because the record is clear that in november of two thousand and fifteen at the outset of the sustained government campaign to repeatedly harm mr martinez it was the head of the local committee to defend the revolution powerful communist group that closely regulates behavior community by community the head of the c d r personally told mr martinez to stop writing for the online opposition magazine it is not a case of the someone who is merely suspected of being friends with journalist he was instructed by the powerful communist the official stop writing for this political dissident magazine elsewhere is that so i'm sorry if we agree with you  question five these uncontested facts established persecution past or future is a matter of law why would we just send it back and say tell the immigration judge the b i and they have not adequately consider the evidence and just reminded well i believe it's because it presents a purely legal question de novo i believe because the facts are undisputed certainly and it's a matter of the court's  determination whether it remands but i don't believe a remand that allows only one answer would be the most prudent course we believe that the law compels and the th circuit in prior cases has found as isolated for me an isolated event happens once or perhaps twice and separated by a great deal of time and unrelated to each other this is a series of events after a vent after a vent  escalating in seriousness that are all connected to his activities as a political journalist and the lower courts to concede as they must that dissident political journalists are heavily persecuted in cuba and it seems they've sort of gotten off track by creating this subgroup and saying well mr martinez he's not in that group he's just in the group of people who associate with journalists and that's not a protected group and that's simply erroneous because again the facts as accepted by the government in their own brief and as testified i missed martinez and the judge was emphatic in explaining how credible and how admirable mr martinez was found he was told stop were writing for this magazine that his journalism and the evidence that the court it on his economic inability st of all the immigration judge completely missed the factual record in saying he merely lost one job that after running into trouble with the government he lost the job as a waiter the testimony in which the the immigration board on appeal recognized they said well in fact he was fired for three straight jobs as a waiter in quick succession he have a job the communist officials told his employer get rid of this guy because of his political problems and she found a new job he testified he's an excellent waiter he knows multiple languages he was fired from that job for the same reason he found a rd job the government again went to that employers said no this guy you don't hire that's evidence of inability to earn a living on top of that he then relocated he said ok i clearly have a problem with government officials here i'm going to move to another part of cuba he must replace  he's young and there he is arrested and held without charge for three days by government officials who again threaten him as with his st attention he's threatened with torture he's threatened with death and he's ultimately released and he's told you have political problems in your home town you're not welcome here go back to where you came from he then tries to emigrate l he has his laptop confiscated his cell phone confiscated at the airport these are the critical tools of a journalist is told you are a national security threat now the man is a waiter it's unclear what else that could possibly be referring to but his political journalism is they were confiscated he sent back home and ultimately he flees the country and the record is somewhat ambiguous but it sounds like he is help from friends to unlawfully escape from cuba but there is no reasonable fact finder that can say that his fear of future persecution well accepted as subjectively sincere and accept is fully credible define that as a reasonable there is a reasonable fear of future persecution upon return to cuba and for that reason we believe this constellation of facts compels the result that he is entitled to asylum and as one final point i think the government's choice of case law is pretty clean struct of the court the government and ourselves in our brief we all point to the that was a truly isolated event he had that one horrible incident with the police he then remained in the country for another year continued his political activities was not disturbed or harassed because of it and him the evidence at his hearing was that well fellow classmates threatened that i might be tortured or i might be killed and the court explained and this also shows up in the midship case which is cited they said there's a big difference if it's a co worker or a classmate or your brother in law who says you're going to get in trouble you might get killed as opposed to a government official or the secret police who actually have the power to carry that out mr martinez was threatened with death in the basement of a jail cell being held by police officers on no charges no war that is a credible threat and it happened more than once that's my thank you you the government's position in this case is that there is no basis to disturb the agency's decision below it's simply the case that this is a situation where they even see made an informed decision based on the record that was  opposition party charlus instead it appears that the respondent is only a private citizen and is not a member of the media it seems to me that that sort of lurking problem here is in that statement question judge branch but i think the distinction here is simply a matter of whether or not he is a journalist in the sense that he is a recognized member of the opposition media cuba as opposed to being somebody who is a server by trade who has written a couple of articles for a magazine under a different name than his real name i think about was the basis for the agency's decision below which was that if he had been doing more if he had been recognised as being an actual journalist in participating in more activities writing more articles doing more things then i think  that certainly and of course point would be well taken i think though this is it in your eyes in your own brief you cite the evidence that the president of the c d r told mr martinez that he would spend a lot of time in prison we're going to you're going to spend a lot of time in prison and be tortured if you continue to write for the magazine so i think i mean i don't i don't see how you can ignore that i mean that they don't say you are briefs and that is what the record below demonstrates but i believe that the government's position is simply that the identification by the head of the c d r in under the particular facts of this case do  support a finding that he was in fact in opposition journalist in cuba engaged in opposition journalism such that he was persecuted on account of his political opinion correct judge ok thank you thanks justin is it and my question i guess is just a follow on i mean it just seems to me that you're slicing the baloney or asking us to slice it awfully awfully awfully thin because what you're saying is sure he was writing for a dissident magazine but he wasn't a journalist i mean he was i don't know i mean what's the spectrum here from a you know there isn't a columnist and then there's a freelancer or something i mean it's just he's writing for di a it's a hard point with these are these are difficult facts or the agency had to make a difficult decision based on the facts before it in a parallel context you could think of or absolutely if you or i was to write an occasional article on a on  old son has started his own college football related sports blog called tailgate talk dot org and he's not a professional journalist but i mean he he writes for that blog and does podcasts and i think that as an eighteen year old he considers himself you know a budding journalist i don't really understand i don't know like where along the spectrum do you kind of cut it off i just don't really understand how that's supposed on one judge that that those are those determined based on be individualized facts of this case and of his case the fact that he was not a journalist that the petitioner did not experience conduct in harm that roast the level of persecution again i i believe that the record below shows that the agency took a considered view of the facts of this case in wave them in a in a manner that was was not beneficial to the petitioner to disclaims oh let's talk about the jobs that if i'm remembering correctly the only reference is the last one job but it was me you got a guy like he trying to with his life you know he moves he changes jobs and it seems like i just got that wrong as with all i mean if there's evidence of him losing three jobs  terminations that as recognizing their decision i believe that it is page two it's also there on the board of immigration appeals decision and but no three where i know titian or raise the issue earlier petitioners counsel e immigration judge actually did do you think cumulatively and so did the board and that's where the board the board's decision of course you know affirmed the immigration judge decision and i realize that both aren't of the court's purview in review right now but the decision of the board is the decision that is principally responsible for this case before the before the court and i think that the record shows that the board weighed the  evidence of the multiple job losses as well as the cumulative harm that was testified to in this case and determine that it just simply didn't rise to the level of persecution but what are some examples of the kind of work you understand would have really i really don't know much about what he would otherwise be capable of the record obviously demonstrates that he reflects the fact that he had worked in the restaurant industry as a server got fired from three jobs and he got fired from green jobs that's correct well in some the government's position is that the record below reflects that the facts of this case this is this this case is isn't about what the cuban government does to other other people are opposition journalists doesn't reflect it's not about what cuba does to other people it's just about the facts of this case and none of the facts of this case it didn't rise to the level of ask persecution  didn't proffer sufficient evidence to show that he had an objective objective of the reasonable fear of future persecution if he was to be returned to cuba because his claims for withholding and protection judge newsom's question about well what's a real journalist and what's non journalists if real journalists are entitled to protection and amateur journalists are not the question is i think the  key response that that is well what is the source of the harassment if the government began harassing the judge's son or any eighteen year old blogger i think everyone's st increase will be would be well why why is the government harassing him if a young man has robbed a bank in the government has asked him to account for that well it's clear that it that it's reasonable if the government is going after him because they don't like his religion if the government's going after just they don't like his football tailgate blog then that there is a problem that there is a fundamental problem with american values and american and american immigration law you cannot go after people because of their political opinions and while the government doesn't go around the globe writing every wrong if someone seeks asylum under a protected class a protected group and can demonstrate their persecution is connected to their political activity in their home country then they are entitled to asylum and here we feel the evidence is overwhelming that it was the only reason that the government was harming mr martinez and repeatedly harming mr martinez was because of his political journalist so it does not matter the volume or the extent i think is particularly salient point that he was not paid for his work in journalism and judge martin well what are their jobs could he do well he explained in his testimony i heard money as a waiter but then i write and i work with this magazine and i do so anonymously because it's extremely dangerous to put your name on something criticizing the government and it totalitarian regime so the next logical question is well it does he remain anonymous is the government unaware of who he is and what he does and no reasonable fact finder could say it's still unclear the government isn't on to him they're absolutely they're all over him and they're all over him because as you are quoted they told him stop writing for this magazine or you could get killed you could disappear you could be tortured this is told him by the head of the communist local affiliate the c v r it was told to him by state agents in a basement prison cell these are not the people who other quotes and looked at threats and said well that's different because they don't really have the power to carry it out is in the crosshairs of a powerful to tell a tarrying government because of his protected activity and when the government says well it doesn't matter what you've been does the other people that's that's in correct if there's a pattern in practice of oppressing political dissident journalists it's absolutely relevant what government and the record here shows even the opinions below show that the u state department recognizes there is a pattern and practice of severe persecution of political journalists in cuba so there's a presumption that he has a reasonable fear of persecution and a well founded fear persecution future pr of persecution if he's returned and i think that the last point i would make is that it's no solution to say well he can hide or he can just simply stop being a journalist  and if he does lays low fees does what the government tells him he'll be ok this court's cause i'm zaida opinion explaining the context of religious persecution and immigration court and said well all the christians are oppressed in iran many of them just hide they just practice underground and that gets them by and there are a lot of christians who live their lives unmolested by the government and that this court was very clear saying that's not the solution you don't have to hide your protected status in order to avoid a finding of asylum hiding is not a solution in this case it's moot anyway because he can't hide now the government has already identified him it's already on top of him it's already monitoring it's already harassing him for that reason he's entitled to asylum thank you thank you take the case under advisement