father was in fact biological father excuse me the nd reason in this case stands out is for its two prior instances of torture at su different times and locations usually even a single instance of torture is highly documented prior torture even stating that it's even if it assumes that in fact luck would have been perfect wife and that the mexican police conducted these instances it would still not in the board's decision stands from a section and the idea assumed without any evidence that that medication would not be available in the dominican republic that without it this person would become uncontrollable encounter the police would be arrested would be incarcerated and then finally would be tortured while in prison and so was the attorney general did on review is the side that's minding undocumented chain of speculation not because each step in the chain not  is insufficient to demonstrate a kathleen and the other cases that the board in the i g cite almost uniformly deal with very similarly sparse evidentiary records in almost no instance that i'm aware of in any in of actual substantiated passports here and very little in the in the way even of particularized rests and there's only one case that the that the i j a cited that in fact involved in a  to his home country of iran after being convicted of a drug trafficking offense and so the b r a relied it appears soley on his own testimony that his fair skin that he is last name and that his prior criminal record and his lengthy period of time in the united states would be sufficient upon removal to run to bring him to the attention of authorities and that they would ultimately torture him because he basically he was a christian and lived in the united states for a long time had a criminal history in this case there was no passports or there were not even any instances of past threats and i think that this is important because what the b i did was it took that testimony from the respondent and then it looked very carefully and in depth at the respondents country conditions evidence and most of this country conditions evidence was generalized country conditions evidence is the kind of evidence that the regulation in a c f r twelve away point  the agency to consider and the war in its opinion specifically cited four different country conditions reports including two very general reports from the parliament of state and said it was considering this evidence and in the aggregate the respondents testimony on the one hand and this generalized country conditions on the other and it concluded that in fact this person had the risk of torture now  very similar he respects to that in matter of ga except that his case is better documented he can show two prior instances of torture and he can show a plethora frankly of country conditions evidence ranging from the vehicles matching the descriptions you gave both to the asylum officer during his initial interview at the border and later in testimony to the immigration judge you don't know what you do you you don't question do you that the threat though has to be it's not a question of whether mexico is a horrible place it's not of course what you let's assume that people get routinely arbitrarily tortured in mexico let's make that assumption even if that were true that would not mean that your client was targeted for torture and therefore that would not be enough i mean do you accept the premise that it has to be particularized to him that you have them there the predictive judgment in question is that either government officials would target him or others would target him with the acquiescence of the government i mean do you accept that crimes i do your honor and i accept that to the extent that we can assume the story of the population in mexico will not be tortured during their lifetimes if we assume that that's true then i think it's fair to place a burden on the applicant to demonstrate a particular us risk in other words some way in which they stand out from the generalized population but i also think we have to recognize that that's really an analytical tool for women but in that my hypothetical you implied that the country conditions were poor and that many people were toward even if that were the means your client would have to indicate that he had a particular reason to believe he would be tortured in other words they would have to target you know for torture do you accept that crimes i do your honor again i have to say that i'm so long as as we can accept that if it were not reaching a level where fifty plus more than fifty percent of the population is experiencing torture because the cat only requires that torture be more likely than not and by are at the end instigation with the acquiescence of government officials but it has to be torture that's correct  he has a risk of torture in the home country doesn't have to be a particular group of individuals as it would and i notice as it would were the same statutory withholding of remove or other persecution base claim case where that the motive of the pers becomes important to the only question in a cap case is objective only whether the person faces a greater than fifty percent likelihood of torture by officials or with their acquiescence and in fact that is exactly the case that the the  authorities and so in this case we find it highly probative that mister walker would it was torture at two different times and in two different locations and i believe we've a deuce of the excuse me a substantial amount of evidence that these were d more likely than not mexican police officers or people acting with their acquiescence and in fact in its review the b i a seems to have assumed those points argue mendo at least to the extent that it said that even if they assume that these were mexican cops and even if they assumed that that they tortured mister locke would he still couldn't establish a substantial likelihood and the problem here is that not to be flip but lockwood it seems would have to be an incredibly unlucky person to be just an average mexican at the wrong place at the wrong time twice on two different times and locations and so i believe that that in itself strongly suggests that lockwood has particularized characteristics that heighten years but that being tortured why is it not fair to say predictably that's not there's not a substantial likelihood that he will be tortured well your honor the st thing i'd say is that there is no time window within which cat claims ha to play out and there in fact was a substantial period of time between the st instance and the nd instance of torture and so then what happens is after the nd instance of torture a walk with returns to a different part of mexico and he  lives for a time with a an american pastor in a gated community and at that point his problems began again when he moved out of the gated community and he once again he testified began to face harassment by people  particularly police officers who were assumed that he was essentially a caucasian american and during testimony at one point he described an incident where is happens and the police began asking him specifically where the drugs where is it where is this where that and lockwood try to tell them hey i'm just an american i'm sorry i'm mexican citizen and they simply would not believe that and so what i think we see in law and nd attempt at relocation is a circumstance where the same particular  characteristics that brought him to the attention of his torturers on pretty on the previous two occasions were showing themselves again and ultimately what he would return to the united states border to seek relief after being threatened with death by somebody who you know may or may not have also been involved with mexican law enforcement and one more point of lakes and make about this is that these claims specifically of mexican police officers mexico without being tortured in light of these two prior instances of torture and if there are no other questions i'd like to reserve the rest of my time for but this is really can i ask you an absurdity defense attorney rebuttal but i do have a question and i want to give you an opportunity to disabuse me of this it seems to me that you have a very good argument that he is angle size that that's the reason he was targeted twice in tijuana imports of the are two different places and after and a fter he left the gated community the problem that i see for your art for this part of your argument is that we have a very narrow standard of review if the  substantial evidence in which to make a conferee by and that is that his angle size characteristics were not so significant that they would have made him a target if he were to go back now it seems to me that we would be hard pressed to say that viewing the evidence of the light basically favorable in favor of the ruling if there wasn't enough evidence to impossible but why one was why did he not feel satisfied the burden that not relocating relocating was not really an option that would be beneficial to if i understand your question your honor you're asking why he didn't meet his relocation burden yes that's what i'm asking he didn't need it because he was actually built to relocate and lived for two years in mexico without harm immigration error not in the in the ultimate factual finding but in placing the burden on the petitioner to show that relocation would be impossible and what he's saying i think is that that's  standard the standard as he points out is what the big guy a said which is completely different that what the immigration i don't agree with counsel's contention that this was an incorrect standard that the believe the record indicated from two thousand and eleven to two thousand and eighteen he is claiming that there were two incidents in two thousand and sixteen in which he was tortured but aside from those he has been able to internally relocate within fact that there was this particular as risk of future torture as well so there's multiple factors that must be considered here and mister alvarez did not make showing that particular was a gang member in the united states gang tattoos when he went to mexico part of what allowed him to get cat we was the fact that he was that he would targeted the cat does not require and does not have a motive or why there's no requirement that the persecutors have a reason to to go after this particular individual that's not where i'm going when i'm going to predictive judgment that he would be tortured his explanation for validating his predictive judgment is look at how i look and i will continually be hit upon and so we're not talking about whether you know he's being persecuted for being white what we're talking about is it makes it all likely more likely than not that he will be persecuted substantial likelihood and i'll stop using more persecuted is that  tortured and i think that his his claim is no different than many engle size mexicans and the point of time is to provide protection for those who specifically there's a substantial likelihood that there will be adverse actions in the nature of torture directed at him because he has other wise but not good enough the government's position is that does not rise to the more likely than not standard he lived there for seven years and he is providing us two instances only that does not meet the more likely than not standard any the board case law discusses the words individually targeted or particular certainly many people are targeted for all sorts of reasons his claim is that he looks like you have money the individual stop their trucks then asked him if you have money and then threw him in the back of the trucks he also claimed that it was because he was a know maybe i don't know but he's saying that because it's every single mexican police officer is going to torture him but what he is saying is that to follow up on those homes questioning that that will make him a target and i wonder if the immigration didn't simply misunderstand the claim when the immigrations said you had said on page one without more it is unclear why these individuals d in other words the assailants from the two prior episodes would still seek to harm him in the future i think that's the and then i want to say that he was of able to pay the ransom so why would he continue to be targeted well that does suggest that the immigration judges simply didn't understand the petitioners claim obviously he's not saying that these two he's saying mexican police are going to are still going to try to get my ten thousand dollars he's saying that that bec that that's going to continue to differentiate you know from everybody else in mexico but i think they know gratian judge is focusing on the speculative nature of this claim and again many people who are engl mixed look more anglo are not torture and he's from even a great judge say that the immigration goes consider the country conditions evidence as a whole and determine that such vague evidence of generalized affirmed the board statement that last night's reliance country conditions information was generalized evidence of violence and crime not particular to him which is insufficient to demonstrate the more likely standard again just simply case matter g eight quite extensively but in that case that's actually quite distinguishable because the country conditions evidence there was specifically expeller to address somebody in the petitioners position he was an iranian christian of armenian descent  he was known to have been convicted of a controlled substance violation he was known to have spent a significant amount of time living in the us and he testified specifically that he would be identifiable by government the airport as of now muslim ethnic minority based solely on his surname and the loss of his legal status in the united states will also focus the attention of iranian authorities on investigating his criminal history and likely than not to be tortured but i would also add that i think that immigration judge did point to something very important this is vidual was stopped twice and did not provide any ransom money he did not have anything to give him and he was released twice which counters which undermines his argument that he's going to continually be tortured in mexico if we don't know who these individuals were we don't know if they'll know if he's back in mexico we don't know why they would can target him again for years after he's left and we don't know where or why they would target him at all quite frankly if he's already been harassed and has provided th making is i thought that the argument that you were making in the one that i think was immigration judge articulated was simply the notion that i didn't give the money when they tortured but he suggests that cuts against me in a predictive judgment that i will be tortured again and that is logically i don't see how those two things go together in less you were talking about the exact same people who two me and the two prior incidents and we're not talking about that were i think th the immigration agent may have been referring and i and i can only speculate here but i think there was testimony that mister alvarez believed but was not sure that one of the police officers was the same in the two instances but has not identified any threats of harm since leaving mexico or that those who harmed him in the past are still motivated to find harm him he believes that he will be extorted again but it is unclear why any