[00:00:01] Speaker 04:
Good morning, I'm Judge Gould.

[00:00:03] Speaker 04:
I'm presiding today and I'm pleased to be sitting with my colleagues, Judge Hawkins on my right and Judge Bumate on my left.

[00:00:19] Speaker 04:
We only have one case to be argued today.

[00:00:23] Speaker 04:
The others are submitted on the briefs.

[00:00:26] Speaker 04:
But let me just mention the submitted cases.

[00:00:31] Speaker 04:
Could you bring that closer?

[00:00:34] Speaker 04:
OK, we've got United States versus Slack, number 24.

[00:00:39] Speaker 04:
24 at 24, 04 submitted on briefs.

[00:00:47] Speaker 04:
The United States versus Sanchez Moreno, number 24, 2577.

[00:00:57] Speaker 04:
Submitted on briefs.

[00:01:02] Speaker 04:
We have Miguel Alpera, Barrick rather, versus White.

[00:01:13] Speaker 04:
Submitted on briefs.

[00:01:15] Speaker 04:
And we have

[00:01:17] Speaker 04:
Tendon versus Rainier, number 23.

[00:01:24] Speaker 04:
Jim, hold it a little closer.

[00:01:35] Speaker 04:
23, 90 some and non briefs.

[00:01:39] Speaker 04:
So we'll proceed.

[00:01:44] Speaker 04:
Always beckers.

[00:01:45] Speaker 04:
We also have

[00:01:47] Speaker 04:
Becker versus TIG, G Insurance Company, number 24443, submit numbers.

[00:02:04] Speaker 04:
And we'll proceed to have argument today in the case of, what was it called?

[00:02:16] Speaker 04:
In the case of Ramos.

[00:02:19] Speaker 04:
versus Bondy, number 241710, which is being argued with 10 minutes per side.

[00:02:31] Speaker 04:
So we'll start with appellant, please.

[00:02:40] Speaker 04:
That's the hand.

[00:02:42] Speaker 01:
Good morning, and may it please the court.

[00:02:44] Speaker 01:
My name is Luis Cortez.

[00:02:45] Speaker 01:
I'm here on behalf of the petitioner.

[00:02:47] Speaker 01:
I'll endeavor to reserve three minutes for rebuttal and I'll try to watch the clock.

[00:02:53] Speaker 04:
If you forget, I'll try to remind you, but it's up to you to make sure you've got your time.

[00:03:00] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:03:02] Speaker 01:
Your honors, this case presents the board committing a legal error that warrants remand.

[00:03:08] Speaker 01:
And I'd like to focus first on the legal error here, which was that the board applied a erroneously high evidentiary standard when looking at the VAWA cancellation of removal, the special rule cancellation of removal.

[00:03:20] Speaker 01:
And then how that, in turn, undermined both just the denial and its refusal to act su espante.

[00:03:28] Speaker 01:
So first, I'll look at the erroneously high evidentiary standard.

[00:03:34] Speaker 01:
What the board did here when evaluating the cancellation of removal is that what it was effectively looking for conclusive evidence that the petitioner met the requirements for vile cancellation of removal,

[00:03:47] Speaker 01:
instead of the more modest evidentiary standard, which is a reasonable likelihood to establish that eligibility.

[00:03:59] Speaker 01:
And so because the statute requires a much more modest evidentiary standard and the board used a much higher evidentiary standard,

[00:04:07] Speaker 01:
the court should remand the case so that it can use the proper reasonable likelihood standard and then provide the analysis from there.

[00:04:16] Speaker 03:
This is a very kind of an unusual case I think you might even agree because ordinarily when the lever if you will to get consideration or reconsideration the abuser

[00:04:35] Speaker 03:
is alive and well, and there is some threat of continued abuse.

[00:04:42] Speaker 03:
Would you agree with that?

[00:04:44] Speaker 01:
That's generally the case in in-vowel cancellation.

[00:04:46] Speaker 03:
In this case, the alleged abuser, the person who's described as the abuser, is no longer with us.

[00:04:55] Speaker 01:
Correct.

[00:04:55] Speaker 03:
Correct?

[00:04:56] Speaker 03:
Correct.

[00:04:56] Speaker 03:
And the child is what, 12, 13?

[00:05:00] Speaker 01:
About 13, 14 years old, yes.

[00:05:02] Speaker 03:
Okay.

[00:05:02] Speaker 03:
And was there any evidence presented at any point in the proceedings about the child's health?

[00:05:11] Speaker 01:
The child's health, Your Honor?

[00:05:13] Speaker 01:
Yeah.

[00:05:13] Speaker 01:
I don't know if there was any evidence, direct evidence about the child's health and whether that

[00:05:17] Speaker 01:
was a point in the case.

[00:05:19] Speaker 03:
It seems to me the substance of your contention is because the child's mother

[00:05:30] Speaker 03:
abused drugs, that that equals child abuse or child harm within the meaning of the lever that you're trying to obtain to get relief, correct?

[00:05:45] Speaker 03:
Correct.

[00:05:46] Speaker 03:
Okay.

[00:05:46] Speaker 03:
So what evidence is there other than the fact that the late mother was a drug abuser and abused all sorts of drugs?

[00:05:58] Speaker 01:
Great question, Your Honor.

[00:06:00] Speaker 01:
So looking at all of the puzzle pieces here, what the mother did was that she was putting herself in harm's way and the abuse didn't just happen by her ongoing addiction while caring for the child, but

[00:06:16] Speaker 01:
The petitioner in this case is undocumented and also had severe medical issues and continues to have severe medical issues.

[00:06:24] Speaker 01:
He's on daily dialysis at this point.

[00:06:26] Speaker 01:
And so when we're looking at the whole picture, we have a mother who is continuing to use drugs despite the fact that she is the only one with status and that the father has a really severe health issues that was declining even at the time of the abuse.

[00:06:44] Speaker 01:
So we, excuse me, even at the time of the drug use.

[00:06:46] Speaker 03:
The child is a citizen?

[00:06:48] Speaker 01:
The child is a US citizen, Your Honor.

[00:06:49] Speaker 03:
Born in the United States?

[00:06:50] Speaker 03:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:06:51] Speaker 01:
Okay.

[00:06:51] Speaker 01:
And so we're looking at all of this and whether that rises to the level of abuse of a mother who knows that if I continue this drug use, I might go to jail for a long time, I might die, and we have the father who is undocumented, so he's on shaky legal ground, and he has declining health, which has been

[00:07:10] Speaker 01:
now really severe, and so we look at all of those to see if that is abuse.

[00:07:16] Speaker 01:
But the board didn't rest the decision on that.

[00:07:18] Speaker 01:
What the board said was that the evidence that was submitted didn't show, didn't establish eligibility for VAWA cancellation.

[00:07:27] Speaker 03:
In order to establish eligibility, you would have to show, as I understand it, two things.

[00:07:32] Speaker 03:
One, that the child is a citizen, and let's assume you did that successfully.

[00:07:37] Speaker 03:
I understand the government may not agree with that.

[00:07:40] Speaker 03:
But the second thing is you have to show abuse.

[00:07:44] Speaker 03:
There's no evidence in the record of impairment of the child's health as a result of the mother's drug activity, correct?

[00:07:53] Speaker 01:
Correct.

[00:07:53] Speaker 01:
We don't have evidence of that.

[00:07:55] Speaker 03:
For example, there's no medical evidence of harm in utero.

[00:08:00] Speaker 03:
Correct.

[00:08:01] Speaker 01:
Correct.

[00:08:01] Speaker 01:
But what we have to show here is whether there's a reasonable likelihood that the petitioner can show that at the hearing.

[00:08:08] Speaker 01:
And so what we do have here is that we have a mother who had continued drug use throughout the course of the child's life.

[00:08:16] Speaker 01:
Are you suggesting there's other evidence that you can muster that you haven't presented yet?

[00:08:21] Speaker 01:
You know, there's more, yes, there's more evidence that could come out in trial regarding the extent of the drug use of the mother.

[00:08:27] Speaker 01:
We know that she did use drugs and that she died.

[00:08:30] Speaker 02:
Is there any more further evidence about the child being battered or subject to extreme cruelty?

[00:08:37] Speaker 01:
Your Honor, what the evidence here is when we look at the totality is a judge could find that this type of behavior rises to the level of extreme cruelty.

[00:08:46] Speaker 04:
And why is that if the child was not harmed physically or verbally with abuse and had a drug addict mother

[00:09:01] Speaker 04:
Why does just the existence of the mother's addiction create abuse for the child?

[00:09:08] Speaker 01:
It's not just the existence of the mother's addiction.

[00:09:11] Speaker 01:
At least in the evidence that was submitted, there was a statement made that the mother was using drugs or was high around the presence of the child.

[00:09:22] Speaker 01:
But also we look at the overall circumstances as to

[00:09:25] Speaker 01:
And what predicament is the mother placing the child in by using these drugs, right?

[00:09:31] Speaker 01:
Knowing that the father is undocumented.

[00:09:33] Speaker 01:
I think we would have a much different picture if we had a father with stable legal footing in the country with the eligibility to work, et cetera, and then the mother is behaving in a different way.

[00:09:43] Speaker 01:
But we look at this totality of the circumstances and then the question becomes,

[00:09:47] Speaker 01:
is the mother at behaving this way, knowing the father's own medical ailments and his shaky legal status in the country, is all of that rise to the level of abuse.

[00:09:58] Speaker 01:
We respectfully submit that this showing what we have right now shows a reasonable likelihood that a judge could find abuse under those circumstances.

[00:10:07] Speaker 01:
And so by showing

[00:10:09] Speaker 01:
act by the board requiring to show actual abuse at this stage, both undermines the Congress's requirement that just a reasonable likelihood is submitted.

[00:10:20] Speaker 01:
And I do want to point one more thing.

[00:10:21] Speaker 02:
We have to look at... Don't you show a prima facie case and if you haven't shown it yet, what do you expect them to do?

[00:10:29] Speaker 01:
Well, Your Honor, I think that's where we disagree, where the board didn't reach that.

[00:10:35] Speaker 01:
They didn't say you didn't reach a prima facie case.

[00:10:38] Speaker 01:
Because that would mean that they would say you didn't show a reasonable likelihood.

[00:10:42] Speaker 02:
Well, then they say you had no credible evidence.

[00:10:45] Speaker 02:
So if you can't present any credible evidence, then you're not going to create a prima facie case.

[00:10:50] Speaker 01:
Well, Your Honor, when they were talking about the credibility, the evidence, they were talking about the citizenship of the mother.

[00:10:55] Speaker 01:
And I think that really underscores my argument because there was a contention from the board as to whether the mother is a U.S.

[00:11:02] Speaker 01:
citizen.

[00:11:02] Speaker 01:
And what was submitted on the record was the birth certificate of the child that lists the mother as a U.S.

[00:11:07] Speaker 01:
citizen and the death certificate that lists the mother as a U.S.

[00:11:11] Speaker 01:
citizen.

[00:11:12] Speaker 01:
And so that underscores my point, because that shows that the board is asking us to outright show the eligibility now, as opposed to just a reasonable likelihood that he can show that she's a U.S.

[00:11:24] Speaker 01:
citizen, especially because under the VAWA context, there's a special provision under VAWA where the evidence that needs to be submitted is just any credible evidence in order to meet the eligibility threshold, much less the reasonable likelihood of eligibility

[00:11:40] Speaker 01:
that really the board should employ.

[00:11:42] Speaker 01:
I see I'm well into my rebuttal time, so if I can save the rest of my time for rebuttal.

[00:11:45] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:11:45] Speaker 04:
Okay, council, for your planning purposes, we'll add, what do you have on the clock for rebuttal now?

[00:11:56] Speaker 01:
I have one minute.

[00:11:59] Speaker 04:
OK, we'll give you how much rebuttals did you want to make?

[00:12:06] Speaker 01:
I could take two minutes, but that's being very generous.

[00:12:08] Speaker 01:
I'll take whatever the court didn't give me.

[00:12:10] Speaker 04:
I'll be happy.

[00:12:11] Speaker 04:
We'll give you two minutes.

[00:12:15] Speaker 04:
OK, now we'll hear from Bondi.

[00:12:20] Speaker 03:
There is a button right underneath there that you can lower that if you would like.

[00:12:28] Speaker 03:
We can see it just fine, but I just want you to know that.

[00:12:31] Speaker 00:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:12:32] Speaker 00:
May it please the Court?

[00:12:33] Speaker 00:
My name is Jessica Strokas.

[00:12:34] Speaker 00:
I'm here on behalf of the United States.

[00:12:36] Speaker 04:
Oh, thank you for coming all the way from Washington, D.C.

[00:12:39] Speaker 04:
to give us help.

[00:12:40] Speaker 00:
Thank you for having me.

[00:12:43] Speaker 00:
Your honors, this court should deny the petition for review because the board did not abuse its discretion in denying petitioners' motion to reopen.

[00:12:51] Speaker 00:
He sought reopening for two reasons.

[00:12:53] Speaker 00:
One, to apply for special rule cancellation of removal.

[00:12:56] Speaker 00:
And the other reason was to seek equitable tolling of the 90-day deadline on a motion to reopen to seek cancellation of removal for

[00:13:06] Speaker 00:
non-permanent residents for certain non-permanent residents because of the Supreme Court's decision in Nish Chavez.

[00:13:12] Speaker 00:
And just to get that out of the way very quickly, Nish Chavez and the rule established there was not what prevented the petitioner from seeking reopening timely.

[00:13:20] Speaker 00:
It was that his qualifying relative simply did not exist at the time of his underlying proceedings, nor during the time that he could have timely filed a motion to reopen.

[00:13:32] Speaker 03:
Were you able to find any case in which that falls within this penumbra where the described abuser no longer exists?

[00:13:43] Speaker 00:
No, Your Honor.

[00:13:44] Speaker 00:
For special rule cancellation of removal, typically, you are correct, it is related to the Violence Against Women Act.

[00:13:51] Speaker 00:
It is related to VAWA.

[00:13:52] Speaker 00:
And I have not found a case where

[00:13:56] Speaker 00:
the abuser is no longer with us or the abuser is deceased.

[00:14:01] Speaker 00:
For special rule cancellation of removal, as has already been discussed pretty significantly this morning, it was the petitioner's burden to show prima facie eligibility by showing in part battery or extreme cruelty to his United States citizen child by the United States citizen parent.

[00:14:18] Speaker 03:
And I take it in the record, there's no indication of the petitioner having

[00:14:25] Speaker 00:
personally or physically observed any of the abuse that's correct is that correct in his declaration Which I believe is on page 45 of the record.

[00:14:35] Speaker 00:
He he alleges that the mother used drugs

[00:14:41] Speaker 00:
in the presence of their daughter and was under the influence of those drugs while she cared for the daughter.

[00:14:46] Speaker 00:
But the sentence immediately thereafter was, I was not present on those occasions.

[00:14:50] Speaker 00:
And he presented no factual backdrop for how he would know if he was not there, especially considering the age of the daughter at the time of the mother's death.

[00:14:58] Speaker 00:
I believe she was around four years old.

[00:15:00] Speaker 00:
So his allegation is that the mother used drugs around the toddler when he wasn't there.

[00:15:06] Speaker 00:
But even taking that allegation is true, that the mother used drugs in the presence of the daughter or while caring for the daughter, that simply does not show battery or extreme cruelty.

[00:15:16] Speaker 00:
As respondents brief pointed out on page 14, he did not state that the daughter was present when the mother overdosed.

[00:15:25] Speaker 00:
He did not state that the mother ever harmed her or allowed her through her inaction to come to harm or caused her to be the victim of an act or threatened act of violence.

[00:15:34] Speaker 00:
And he did not explain to the extent that the mother had used drugs or how the mother behaved in the daughter's presence And abuse or extreme cruelty.

[00:15:44] Speaker 00:
I'm sorry battery extreme cruelty is not just abuse in the statute it

[00:15:50] Speaker 00:
really points to acts of violence or threatened acts of violence, and there simply wasn't anything alleged in the motion to reopen or in any of the evidence that the mother ever committed or through her inaction committed a violent action or threatened a violent action towards her daughter.

[00:16:09] Speaker 00:
With respect to the standard that the board applied, the board applied the correct standard here in assessing prima facie eligibility.

[00:16:16] Speaker 00:
In the opening and reply briefs, petitioner argues that

[00:16:20] Speaker 00:
The board applied an incorrect standard because it required sufficient evidence, but that begs the question sufficient for what?

[00:16:26] Speaker 00:
The standard for primathasha eligibility is not the same standard as for special rule cancellation of removal.

[00:16:32] Speaker 02:
But the INA does require the board to consider any credible evidence, right?

[00:16:37] Speaker 00:
Of course, yeah, and here in this case the board considered all of the evidence.

[00:16:41] Speaker 00:
Petitioner hasn't presented any argument that the board hasn't considered all the evidence.

[00:16:47] Speaker 02:
So the government's argument is there's a difference between considering it and then crediting it, right?

[00:16:52] Speaker 02:
Is that the argument?

[00:16:54] Speaker 00:
I don't even believe that that's the argument, Your Honor, because the board credited the evidence.

[00:16:59] Speaker 00:
It just said that the evidence wasn't sufficient to meet the legal standard for reopening, which is a different legal standard than the legal standard for relief in the statute.

[00:17:08] Speaker 04:
To reopen, would the evidence have to show a probability of success?

[00:17:17] Speaker 00:
Your honor, yes, I believe the standard for reopening is a reasonable possibility of success on the merits.

[00:17:23] Speaker 00:
And in fact, this court has actually used the exact phrase that the petitioner takes question with in Fonseca, Fonseca, where the court said, when evaluating a petitioner's motion on the prima facie eligibility ground, the board will look to whether there is sufficient evidence proffered to indicate a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits.

[00:17:42] Speaker 02:
That is what the board did here.

[00:17:43] Speaker 02:
Why didn't the board abuse its discretion about the citizenship of the mother?

[00:17:48] Speaker 02:
I mean, what more do you need?

[00:17:49] Speaker 02:
It's on the birth certificate of the child and that it says that the mother was born in the United States, correct?

[00:17:57] Speaker 02:
In California.

[00:17:58] Speaker 00:
Yes, that's correct.

[00:17:59] Speaker 00:
It's listed on the child's birth certificate as well as on the mother's death certificate that she was born in California.

[00:18:04] Speaker 02:
So, I mean, isn't that pretty good evidence that she was a United States citizen?

[00:18:09] Speaker 00:
No, Your Honor, because the statutes that govern those documents don't require any independent verification of the statements that are given to the people recording the information.

[00:18:18] Speaker 02:
So the person could just say, I was born here, and then they'll record it.

[00:18:22] Speaker 02:
There's no verification.

[00:18:23] Speaker 00:
I see.

[00:18:25] Speaker 00:
And respondent argued that on pages 17 and 18 of their brief that these statutes, the purpose of them isn't verifying citizenship of a parent or of the decedent.

[00:18:33] Speaker 00:
It's to record certain information about the death or about the birth of the child.

[00:18:38] Speaker 00:
And so the board reasonably said,

[00:18:42] Speaker 00:
that that did not establish the mother's citizenship.

[00:18:48] Speaker 02:
And in more than two years... Would a birth certificate for the mother in the United States, would that have been enough, do you think?

[00:18:53] Speaker 00:
Your Honor, I understand that that is currently being challenged by the government, but as under the state of the law right now, for purposes of this case, I believe so.

[00:19:02] Speaker 03:
Yeah, we talked about that yesterday.

[00:19:03] Speaker 03:
I don't know if you were in the audience or not.

[00:19:07] Speaker 03:
It was very much in front of us at that time.

[00:19:10] Speaker 00:
I was disappointed to be on an airplane, so I was unable to listen in on the arguments.

[00:19:14] Speaker 03:
Well, you can always listen to the tape or watch the video.

[00:19:18] Speaker 00:
Yes, I understand.

[00:19:19] Speaker 00:
I believe that that might be on the court.

[00:19:21] Speaker 02:
We have a much smaller crowd today for some reason than yesterday.

[00:19:23] Speaker 00:
Well, I understand that perhaps the issue of birthright citizenship might be in the interests of the nation right now.

[00:19:32] Speaker 00:
So turning back to this case, though, under the current state of the law and under the state of the law at the time the board determined the motion to reopen,

[00:19:40] Speaker 00:
A birth certificate for the mother could have established U.S.

[00:19:44] Speaker 00:
citizenship.

[00:19:45] Speaker 00:
And it wasn't presented.

[00:19:48] Speaker 00:
A driver's license from certain states could have established citizenship.

[00:19:52] Speaker 00:
It wasn't presented.

[00:19:53] Speaker 00:
A passport could have established U.S.

[00:19:56] Speaker 00:
citizenship.

[00:19:56] Speaker 04:
Council, I have a question for you.

[00:19:59] Speaker 04:
Assuming the mother was a citizen, but the daughter was not abused, what's the result?

[00:20:08] Speaker 00:
The result in the case is that the board did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion to reopen, because the abuse of the child goes to the prima facie eligibility for special rule cancellation of removal.

[00:20:21] Speaker 00:
That is the basis under, I believe it's subpart one of the statute, is that the child has to be subjected to battery or extreme cruelty.

[00:20:29] Speaker 04:
So the child has to be abused even if the mother's a citizen.

[00:20:35] Speaker 00:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:20:36] Speaker 00:
That is the purpose of the statute.

[00:20:38] Speaker 00:
That is the basis of the relief.

[00:20:41] Speaker 04:
Okay, thank you, counsel.

[00:20:43] Speaker 00:
If there are no further questions, this court should deny the petition for review.

[00:20:47] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:20:47] Speaker 04:
Okay, thank you, counsel.

[00:20:50] Speaker 04:
Appreciate the argument.

[00:20:52] Speaker 04:
And now we'll hear rebuttal.

[00:20:55] Speaker 04:
You get a full two minutes and one second.

[00:20:59] Speaker 01:
Thank you so much, Your Honor.

[00:21:00] Speaker 01:
I very much appreciate the court's generous time.

[00:21:03] Speaker 01:
So I guess I'll start first with a point that Judge Hawkins made about the abuser dying in this case and kind of the posture where this leaves this case.

[00:21:13] Speaker 01:
Congress specifically thought about

[00:21:15] Speaker 01:
instances where the abuser may no longer be in the applicant or in the applicant's family's life.

[00:21:21] Speaker 01:
And we know that because the statute does not require for the abuser to still be around or for the parents to still be married in order to apply for this relief.

[00:21:32] Speaker 01:
And although it's not cited in our cases, there are cases where the BIA has looked at instances of marital abuse under VAWA, and then they've been separated for years.

[00:21:44] Speaker 01:
And what the board has said is that that just goes into whether as a matter of discretion, the case should be granted.

[00:21:53] Speaker 03:
It's one thing to say that there's separation

[00:21:58] Speaker 03:
It's quite another thing to say that the abuser is incapable of continuing or threatening the abuse, isn't there?

[00:22:09] Speaker 01:
I see the distinction there, Your Honor, but Congress didn't make that distinction when they're looking at the eligibility requirements.

[00:22:15] Speaker 01:
They could have said, this doesn't apply for when the petitioner has died, and certainly there are places where Congress had said what happens when the

[00:22:23] Speaker 01:
the U.S.

[00:22:23] Speaker 01:
citizen dies and what happens to the eligibility there, they chose not to do that here.

[00:22:28] Speaker 01:
And so we think that that was done on purpose.

[00:22:30] Speaker 01:
That would be for the I.J.

[00:22:32] Speaker 01:
to determine whether as a matter of discretion then the case should be granted.

[00:22:36] Speaker 01:
The last thing I'll say is that the declaration was signed under penalty of perjury

[00:22:41] Speaker 01:
where it says that the mother used drugs in front of the child and that she cared for the child while under the influence of drugs.

[00:22:51] Speaker 01:
It just says that he wasn't there also, like, contributing to that.

[00:22:55] Speaker 01:
But it doesn't say that he didn't know or anything like that.

[00:22:57] Speaker 01:
And lastly, Your Honor, I respectfully disagree with the government's contention that the board used the right standard.

[00:23:03] Speaker 01:
They did not use the word reasonable likelihood of eligibility.

[00:23:07] Speaker 01:
They just said he has not shown that he's eligible.

[00:23:10] Speaker 01:
That's the wrong standard.

[00:23:11] Speaker 02:
Well, you know, you mentioned that statute, but the next sentence in the statute says the determination of what evidence is credible and the weight to be given to the evidence shall be within the sole discretion of the Attorney General.

[00:23:22] Speaker 01:
You're right, Your Honor, and that's during the IJ proceedings where they make fact findings and weighing of these kind of things.

[00:23:29] Speaker 01:
At the board stage of the motion to reopen, you look at, the board looks at whether there's enough evidence to show reasonable likelihood of eligibility.

[00:23:36] Speaker 01:
And then when you're looking at the reasonable likelihood of eligibility, you look at what

[00:23:40] Speaker 01:
evidence is submitted in the evidentiary standard, but that is ultimately needed to be decided by the IJ.

[00:23:46] Speaker 01:
Certainly the IJ could say, you know, I'm not crediting this at the end of the day, but you made enough of a showing that you might be eligible, so that's the prima facie showing, but now looking at it, weighing the evidence, whatever, I'm going the other way, and then that's where that statute would be at.

[00:24:00] Speaker 01:
So we respectfully request the court grant the petition.

[00:24:03] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:24:04] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:24:07] Speaker 04:
That case shall now be submitted, and the parties will hear from us in due course.

[00:24:16] Speaker 04:
I also thank counsel for both the government and the petitioner for their excellent advocacy today, because it really helps our court to have your vigorous arguments.

[00:24:32] Speaker 04:
Thank you.