[00:00:00] Speaker 00:
Good morning.

[00:00:00] Speaker 00:
Thank you your honors.

[00:00:02] Speaker 00:
I'd like to reserve two minutes for rebuttal Okay, please watch the clock, and I'll also try and watch it for you.

[00:00:06] Speaker 00:
Thank you may please the court The government carries a heavy burden of proof in a denaturalization proceeding

[00:00:12] Speaker 00:
Given the severe and unsettling consequences that accompany the loss of American citizenship, the evidence justifying revocation must be clear, unequivocal, and convincing.

[00:00:22] Speaker 00:
Thus, as this court said in Orango, summary judgment for the government in a denaturalization proceeding is warranted only in narrow circumstances.

[00:00:31] Speaker 00:
This is not one of those circumstances.

[00:00:33] Speaker 00:
At the time of the key events in this case, Ms.

[00:00:35] Speaker 00:
Yedison was just 20 years old.

[00:00:37] Speaker 00:
She had fled her village after losing family members to violence from invading Serbian forces and joined the Bosnian military in an effort to survive.

[00:00:45] Speaker 00:
She was the only woman in her unit and was sexually assaulted by her fellow soldiers.

[00:00:50] Speaker 00:
Then, one of the men who had attacked her ordered her to participate in the events that the government now relies on to support its request for denaturalization here.

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Now, more than two decades after becoming naturalized, Miss Edison stands to lose the priceless benefits that come with American citizenship.

[00:01:06] Speaker 00:
But on this record, the government cannot meet its burden of demonstrating that there is no genuine issue of material fact as to whether clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence supports denaturalization.

[00:01:17] Speaker 00:
In ruling for the government below, the district court made impermissible credibility determinations, resolved key disputes of fact against Ms.

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Yedison, and relied on inadmissible expert testimony to inform its unsupported conclusions regarding Ms.

[00:01:30] Speaker 00:
Yedison's mental state more than 30 years ago.

[00:01:32] Speaker 03:
Council, let me go ahead and ask you about that expert testimony.

[00:01:35] Speaker 03:
So if we were to agree with you and say, you know what, it's clear under our Ninth Circuit case law that trial court must make reliability findings under federal rule of evidence 702, can't we still find that it was harmless given the fact that Ms.

[00:01:52] Speaker 03:
Yedison testified that a guy told, when she was in that

[00:01:56] Speaker 03:
I'm going

[00:02:15] Speaker 03:
don't hurt the Muslim folks on that part of town.

[00:02:19] Speaker 03:
So there's testimony there from her.

[00:02:20] Speaker 03:
She also testified that she actively participated in the massacre, although she knows she shot the gun.

[00:02:26] Speaker 03:
She doesn't know if it hit anybody.

[00:02:28] Speaker 03:
So is the expert's testimony, although correct, if we find that you're correct, that the court failed to make a reliability finding?

[00:02:37] Speaker 03:
Isn't it harmless error given all of the other supporting evidence?

[00:02:44] Speaker 00:
Without the expert testimony, there is a dispute of fact.

[00:02:47] Speaker 00:
She also testified that she was unaware of the nationality or religion of the residents of Trisina at the time of the attack, that the unit commanders did not instruct them regarding nationality or religion, and that her instructions were simply to take the area.

[00:03:01] Speaker 00:
And regardless of whether this court disagrees with us on whether there was persecution, there still is a question of whether

[00:03:07] Speaker 00:
she offered purposeful assistance to that persecution.

[00:03:09] Speaker 00:
And Miranda Alvarado counsels that there's the question of whether there was personal involvement and whether there's purposeful assistance.

[00:03:15] Speaker 00:
And those are two separate questions.

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And we think without the extra report, there is certainly a dispute of fact on the purposeful assistance point.

[00:03:21] Speaker 03:
So talk to me about that case, because that's the one, if I remember correctly, where it was the interpreter, correct?

[00:03:26] Speaker 00:
Yes.

[00:03:27] Speaker 03:
OK.

[00:03:27] Speaker 03:
So how is this different?

[00:03:28] Speaker 03:
Because this feels like it's more.

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Firing a gun feels like it's more purposeful, more

[00:03:36] Speaker 03:
greater chance of persecution there than interpretation.

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So I think that the question of whether Miss Edison's personal involvement in any persecution that did occur was greater is the question that I think goes to the interpretation versus the shooting.

[00:03:49] Speaker 00:
The question of the extenuating circumstances, which is the purposeful assistance inquiry, I think that in this case, she has the factors that the court considered in Miranda Alvarado.

[00:04:00] Speaker 00:
I think she has a stronger case on that.

[00:04:02] Speaker 00:
The interpreter in Miranda Alvarado was offering assistance for six years.

[00:04:05] Speaker 00:
He was participating in two to three times a month during that period here.

[00:04:09] Speaker 00:
We have the government has alleged one incident that she was a part of on one day.

[00:04:13] Speaker 00:
The government that Miranda Alvarado also discusses about whether there was a fear of safety and an opportunity to avoid participation.

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And again, in this case, she has offered testimony that she was ordered to participate in this by the person who had previously attacked her.

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She was in shock.

[00:04:28] Speaker 00:
And again, it's this one circumstance where she did not feel like she could get herself out of that situation because of these extreme, extenuating circumstances.

[00:04:35] Speaker 04:
I want to go back for a minute to the expert.

[00:04:40] Speaker 04:
Because while rule 702 of course requires that an expert have used a reliable methodology, I'm not sure what that means when it comes to a historian.

[00:04:52] Speaker 00:
I think that looking at this court's case law and how other courts have treated that, I think, is instructive.

[00:04:58] Speaker 00:
So I'd point the court to, in the Second Circuit, in Marvel characters, where reviewing the sources is permissible, but relying on hearsay testimony to reach conclusions regarding the mental state of specific individuals at a specific point in time is impermissible.

[00:05:11] Speaker 00:
And I think that is where Dr. Tomlanovich, his testimony goes beyond what is permissible here.

[00:05:18] Speaker 04:
So you're not challenging the reliability of his historical account, but only what he inferred then about your client's motivation?

[00:05:29] Speaker 00:
I think that we're challenging, to be admissible, the testimony must be both relevant and reliable.

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And so we do not challenge the reliability about Dr. Tomlanovich's testimony regarding the Ottoman Empire or the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo.

[00:05:44] Speaker 00:
But those aren't the key questions in this case that are relevant to the determination.

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And on those key issues, he does not have the experience or did the work to offer reliable testimony on those points.

[00:05:54] Speaker 04:
But I'm still not totally clear.

[00:05:58] Speaker 04:
So because the jury is probably not going to have

[00:06:05] Speaker 04:
personal knowledge of all the complexities that went into the various conflicts in Bosnia and Croatia and so forth during the relevant time period, it's appropriate, is it not, to have an expert.

[00:06:26] Speaker 00:
I think that there is expertise.

[00:06:27] Speaker 00:
I think that's a yes or no question.

[00:06:29] Speaker 00:
Yes.

[00:06:29] Speaker 00:
I think that there are portions of Dr. Tomlanovich's report that are, as the district courts have, helpful to understand the conflict.

[00:06:37] Speaker 04:
And you're not challenging, or are you, the reliability of his account of what occurred leading up to those various conflicts?

[00:06:58] Speaker 00:
We are not challenging his account of his historical account but I think that that doesn't speak to the key questions.

[00:07:04] Speaker 04:
So the only aspect of his testimony that you're challenging is what he inferred was then the motive might have been the motivation of your client to commit the crimes that she's allegedly committed.

[00:07:23] Speaker 04:
Do I have that right?

[00:07:24] Speaker 00:
I think that we are challenging his testimony, in particular the reliability of his testimony regarding the motivations of Miss Yedison and what she knew and what was in her head during the attack at Tristan.

[00:07:37] Speaker 04:
I just wanted to clarify, that's all you're challenging.

[00:07:40] Speaker 00:
That is the central part of his testimony.

[00:07:44] Speaker 00:
Go ahead.

[00:07:47] Speaker 00:
And I think that that gets into the key question, kind of what you're getting at here, is that these disputes of fact regard Ms.

[00:07:55] Speaker 00:
Edison's mental state at various points in time, and the district court is making improper credibility determinations in granting summary judgment in favor of the government.

[00:08:04] Speaker 01:
I guess I just still would like to know what your strongest case is or whether you have any cases that support the proposition that

[00:08:14] Speaker 01:
psychological hardship or trauma can constitute such extenuating circumstances that they amount to coercion, that they amount to her not really having a choice but to participate here.

[00:08:29] Speaker 00:
I think that I would point the court towards Miranda Alvarado and Fedorenko and the discussion of this being a difficult line drawing question where there is a continuum of conduct and the circumstances that any individual is experiencing, particularly in these civil strife type of conflicts.

[00:08:46] Speaker 01:
What part of Miranda Alvarado tells us that psychological trauma can amount to coercion in the way that you're arguing?

[00:08:54] Speaker 01:
What part of that case says that?

[00:08:56] Speaker 01:
I don't read it that way myself.

[00:08:59] Speaker 00:
I think that the idea that extenuating circumstances, I think, must have meaning and must be given the opportunity for her to present this testimony that she was not freely acting and freely offering her purposeful assistance to persecution in this situation.

[00:09:20] Speaker 00:
And I think that that's a credibility determination that the district court should hear live testimony and then only at that point be able to decide whether they believe her account.

[00:09:29] Speaker 03:
Council, did she not voluntarily join the Sulphicar Unit?

[00:09:35] Speaker 00:
She did voluntarily join the Sulphicar Unit, and her explanation is that it was because she was trying to find food and other kind of amenities at this time of war that was very difficult for her.

[00:09:48] Speaker 03:
Can I take you back to the participation for the persecutor bar?

[00:09:54] Speaker 03:
Can we make anything of her having pled guilty for purposes of determining whether or not she participated in the crimes?

[00:10:03] Speaker 00:
The Bosnian verdict does not include any finding regarding to persecutory motive, religion, nationality on those topics.

[00:10:10] Speaker 00:
And so I think that verdict is relevant to the question whether she had personal involvement, but it doesn't speak to purposeful assistance.

[00:10:17] Speaker 00:
And so that precise legal question that's before the court here, the Bosnian verdict does not inform that inquiry.

[00:10:25] Speaker 04:
So the key word is purposeful, right?

[00:10:30] Speaker 04:
Yes.

[00:10:30] Speaker 04:
That's where you're focusing.

[00:10:33] Speaker 04:
And putting aside for the sake of argument the case law, normally that means that you made a, it's like the equivalent of specific intent, you made a,

[00:10:53] Speaker 04:
decision, conscious decision to do X. You knew what you were doing and you did it for the purpose of achieving some result.

[00:11:05] Speaker 04:
So how and what you seem to be arguing is not challenging that, but challenging her motivation.

[00:11:18] Speaker 04:
And normally motivation is

[00:11:21] Speaker 04:
goes to sentencing, so to speak, but is not relevant to the essential elements.

[00:11:28] Speaker 04:
So this is a more abstract discussion, but I'm not quite sure why motivation is relevant here.

[00:11:38] Speaker 00:
I think that this is a specific context that is different from kind of the criminal sentencing context.

[00:11:44] Speaker 00:
And I think here, where the way that this inquiry is set up, I think Vukimirovic speaks to this, of the fact that in these complex civil strife scenarios, individuals are faced with very difficult choices.

[00:11:58] Speaker 00:
And the idea that she might not be explicitly acting in self-defense doesn't mean there are not other similar extenuating circumstances.

[00:12:04] Speaker 00:
That means that, yes, she may have

[00:12:07] Speaker 00:
Intentionally pulled the trigger on that day, but that doesn't mean that she was purposefully offering her assistance to any acts of persecution that did occur Council let me ask you this is there any evidence.

[00:12:18] Speaker 03:
It shows that the Zulfikar unit Did not target?

[00:12:24] Speaker 03:
Crote I don't pronounce that is it crotes croats a croats.

[00:12:28] Speaker 03:
Thank you or other specifically because of the religion or ethnicity or

[00:12:32] Speaker 00:
Ms.

[00:12:33] Speaker 00:
Yedison, again, offered her testimony that they were not instructed to target them.

[00:12:37] Speaker 00:
Our position is that the evidence in the record is circumstantial and that that's a dispute of fact that should go before the fact finder.

[00:12:47] Speaker 01:
Do you have any other questions right now?

[00:12:49] Speaker 01:
Would you like to reserve the remainder of your time?

[00:12:51] Speaker 01:
Sure, I reserve the remainder.

[00:12:51] Speaker 01:
Okay.

[00:12:52] Speaker 01:
We'll give you two minutes, 30 seconds for rebuttal.

[00:12:54] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:13:08] Speaker 02:
May it please the court, Devin Barrett for the United States.

[00:13:13] Speaker 02:
Your Honor, as a threshold matter, the United States prevails here unless this court reverses the district court's grant of summary judgment on all four counts in this case.

[00:13:22] Speaker 02:
And this court confined in the record supports that Ms.

[00:13:25] Speaker 02:
Yedison misrepresented and omitted material facts on both her refugee and her naturalization applications.

[00:13:32] Speaker 02:
and did not provide truthful answers during her naturalization interview.

[00:13:35] Speaker 03:
Ms.

[00:13:36] Speaker 03:
Barrett, can I direct you to talking to us about the expert testimony?

[00:13:43] Speaker 03:
If we were to agree with your friend on the other side that, you know, the expert report should be inadmissible, does the government still mean it's a high clear and convincing evidence bar for denaturalization if the expert testimony is barred?

[00:14:00] Speaker 02:
Yes, it does, Your Honor.

[00:14:01] Speaker 02:
This court can find, based on at least two of the misrepresentations that Ms.

[00:14:07] Speaker 02:
Yedison made on her refugee naturalization applications, that she is not eligible for naturalization.

[00:14:15] Speaker 02:
The first fact is that she stated that she didn't commit a crime of moral turpitude on her refugee application.

[00:14:21] Speaker 02:
And then on her naturalization applications, she states that she has never committed a crime for which she has not been arrested.

[00:14:29] Speaker 02:
The second omission was that on her

[00:14:31] Speaker 02:
She never states her involvement in the Zulfikar unit.

[00:14:36] Speaker 02:
She only lists one unit that she was involved in where the record demonstrates that she was involved in multiple military units while a member of the Bosnian army.

[00:14:44] Speaker 02:
And then on her naturalization application, she writes none under military service.

[00:14:49] Speaker 02:
So those facts in and of themselves are indicative of fraud.

[00:14:53] Speaker 02:
She made two different misrepresentations on two different applications.

[00:14:58] Speaker 02:
So that lack of consistency

[00:15:00] Speaker 02:
among the applications is fraud in and of itself.

[00:15:03] Speaker 01:
And there's no intent requirement, is there?

[00:15:07] Speaker 02:
The misrepresentations have to be willful, which just mean they have to be deliberate and voluntary.

[00:15:12] Speaker 02:
And the record demonstrates that that is here.

[00:15:17] Speaker 02:
Miss Yedison had knowledge of the falsity of her statements when she made them on both her refugee and naturalization applications.

[00:15:23] Speaker 02:
When she wrote none under military service, she knew that that was not correct.

[00:15:28] Speaker 02:
She had served in the Bosnian army.

[00:15:33] Speaker 02:
Your honors, I would like to turn to the point that was discussed during my colleague's argument about Miss Edison's subjective motivations.

[00:15:43] Speaker 02:
To be clear, her subjective intent does not matter.

[00:15:45] Speaker 02:
She doesn't need to share in the persecutory motive of the Zulfikar unit here in order for this court to find that she assisted or participated in persecution.

[00:15:54] Speaker 02:
Dr. Tamjanovic's report

[00:15:55] Speaker 02:
aids the court in determining that what the Zulfikar unit was doing was persecution on account of a protected ground here, ethnicity and religion.

[00:16:03] Speaker 02:
All we need to show and what the record demonstrates is that Ms.

[00:16:09] Speaker 02:
Yedison knew that what her unit was doing was persecution and that her acts assisted in the furtherance of that persecution.

[00:16:22] Speaker 03:
Do we need to take into account that, as your friend on the other side said, she was suffering from PTSD, she was in shock, she had been previously sexually assaulted, all of that.

[00:16:33] Speaker 03:
Do we even take that into account?

[00:16:36] Speaker 02:
This court can take that into account, Your Honor, but under a matter of Nugusi, Duress is in a defense to the persecutor bar and Ms.

[00:16:43] Speaker 02:
Yedison is subject to the persecutor bar here.

[00:16:45] Speaker 02:
This court and DeLeon Vasquez said that both under either test for assistance or participation in persecution, whether it is a matter of DR or Miranda Alvarado, that duress is not a defense to the persecutor bar.

[00:16:58] Speaker 02:
So even if the district court got the finding of fact wrong that Ms.

[00:17:03] Speaker 02:
Yedison had not suffered duress or any extenuating circumstances, it wouldn't matter because she would still be subject to the persecutor bar in this case.

[00:17:19] Speaker 02:
Your Honor, with respect to Dr. Tomyanovich's report, the district court didn't abuse its discretion in admitting that testimony.

[00:17:29] Speaker 02:
The court made an explicit reliability finding in its report.

[00:17:32] Speaker 02:
And while it doesn't use any magic words, which the Supreme Court doesn't require, the substance of the finding is there.

[00:17:39] Speaker 02:
He says that Dr. Tomyanovich is qualified as an expert on the Bosnian War and the Yugoslav War.

[00:17:46] Speaker 02:
and that his report was helpful in determining the motivations of the Sylphicar Unit on the day of the Trucena massacre.

[00:18:00] Speaker 02:
I would also like to turn to a point about, that my colleague raised as well, about the court making improper credibility findings towards Ms.

[00:18:08] Speaker 02:
Yedison.

[00:18:09] Speaker 02:
That's not what the district court did here.

[00:18:11] Speaker 02:
The district court said that what Ms.

[00:18:13] Speaker 02:
Yedison was claiming was implausible.

[00:18:15] Speaker 02:
And that is just on its face.

[00:18:18] Speaker 02:
The Supreme Court in Matrushita has determined that if the non-moving party's claim as to the existence of a material fact is implausible, that party must come forward with more persuasive evidence to support its claim than would otherwise be necessary.

[00:18:33] Speaker 02:
Ms.

[00:18:33] Speaker 02:
Yedison hasn't done that here.

[00:18:35] Speaker 02:
And the district court found, and this court should affirm, that what Ms.

[00:18:39] Speaker 02:
Yedison is claiming is implausible on its face.

[00:18:41] Speaker 02:
It is implausible for

[00:18:43] Speaker 02:
for anyone to believe that she didn't know that shooting at six unarmed civilians and prisoners of war was a crime when she answered the questions on her refugee and naturalization applications.

[00:19:03] Speaker 03:
Counsel, I'd like to ask you the same question I asked your colleague on the other side.

[00:19:08] Speaker 03:
What can we make of Ms.

[00:19:09] Speaker 03:
Yedison's guilty plea?

[00:19:13] Speaker 02:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:19:13] Speaker 02:
So as my colleague said, the verdict in the criminal court in Bosnia did not make any findings with respect to persecution.

[00:19:24] Speaker 02:
But Ms.

[00:19:26] Speaker 02:
Yedison's testimony in both her own guilty plea and then also in her testimony as a witness in a co-conspirators case demonstrate that she was aware of the persecution that the Zofacar unit

[00:19:43] Speaker 02:
unit was engaging in on that day.

[00:19:45] Speaker 02:
They were told specifically before they even entered the village on that day that these houses on this side of the street are the Muslim Bosniak houses and these houses on the other side of the street are the Bosnian Croat houses.

[00:19:58] Speaker 02:
These are the houses that you should shoot at, meaning the Bosnian Croat houses.

[00:20:02] Speaker 02:
So it was clear even from before they went into the village that the mission was to eradicate the Croats in that village.

[00:20:12] Speaker 02:
No reasonable person could sit here and find that that was not on account of ethnicity and religion.

[00:20:27] Speaker 02:
Your Honor, I'd also like to turn to the issues of latches that we raised before this court.

[00:20:34] Speaker 02:
Our argument is that the court doesn't need to reach the issue of latches, as they're categorically unavailable in civil denaturalization cases.

[00:20:42] Speaker 02:
But even if it did reach the issue of latches here, Ms.

[00:20:45] Speaker 02:
Yedison hasn't met her burden to demonstrate that latches should apply.

[00:20:49] Speaker 02:
She concedes in her deposition that she was not prejudiced by the government, or she wouldn't have done anything differently had she known that this case would have been brought earlier.

[00:20:59] Speaker 02:
And so she cannot be prejudiced by her own admission.

[00:21:03] Speaker 02:
With respect to categorical unavailability, we recognize that this court hasn't held that latches are categorically unavailable in civil denaturalization cases.

[00:21:13] Speaker 02:
But the Sixth Circuit and the Eighth Circuit have held that as so.

[00:21:17] Speaker 02:
And we would urge this court to join those two circuits in making that determination.

[00:21:22] Speaker 02:
The reasons for that are that this is a case where the sovereign is bringing the suit, and latches do not run against the sovereign.

[00:21:32] Speaker 02:
goes back to Pangelinan, Fedorenko, and Dicta in QS versus Costello.

[00:21:38] Speaker 02:
Another reason is that naturalization is not a traditional or inherent equity power of the courts, which is why this court would not be able or the district court would not be able to apply the principle of equity to naturalize non-citizens.

[00:21:52] Speaker 02:
Conversely, it cannot refrain from denaturalizing someone where the government has met its burden to prove that they do not qualify for citizenship.

[00:22:09] Speaker 02:
With respect to, as I say, with respect to the merits, the government is, Ms.

[00:22:13] Speaker 02:
Edison is required to show it's her burden that the government lacked diligence and that she suffered from prejudice.

[00:22:19] Speaker 02:
And as I stated, she was not able to show that here.

[00:22:22] Speaker 02:
Her own admission indicates that she was not prejudiced by this.

[00:22:25] Speaker 02:
And she's not able to show a lack of diligence here.

[00:22:29] Speaker 02:
The government lacked inquiry notice until 2009, which is when it first learned that Ms.

[00:22:34] Speaker 02:
Edison was being, there was a request for her extradition.

[00:22:37] Speaker 02:
to Bosnia to stand trial for her crimes there.

[00:22:43] Speaker 02:
And even so, the delay from 2008 when the government first learned of this until 2018 is reasonable.

[00:22:51] Speaker 02:
Supreme Court cases in Kungis and Costello have held that delays of 20 plus years do not indicate a lack of diligence on behalf of the government.

[00:23:10] Speaker 02:
Your Honor, unless the court has any other questions, we would ask this court to affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment and revocation of Ms.

[00:23:21] Speaker 02:
Yedison's citizenship.

[00:23:23] Speaker 02:
Because the admission of Dr. Tom Yelonovich's testimony was appropriate, there is no dispute of material fact as to whether Ms.

[00:23:31] Speaker 02:
Yedison is eligible to naturalize, and she cannot avoid denaturalization by asserting a latches defense.

[00:23:37] Speaker 01:
It appears we don't have any other questions.

[00:23:39] Speaker 01:
Thank you very much.

[00:23:39] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:23:51] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:23:52] Speaker 00:
Turning to the misrepresentation point that my friend on the other side was making, the government is required to show that any misrepresentations that she made were knowingly willful, and they cannot do that here.

[00:24:03] Speaker 00:
I would point the court in particular to the statement that she had not knowingly committed a crime.

[00:24:09] Speaker 00:
Ms.

[00:24:09] Speaker 00:
C. Edison has offered testimony that she did not receive instruction regarding- What about where she said she had not served in the military?

[00:24:17] Speaker 00:
In that specific question, she previously had disclosed that on a refugee application in her interview with Dr. Woodward, again on her application for lawful permanent residence.

[00:24:27] Speaker 00:
And she has plausibly explained that she misinterpreted the question as asking for an update on that information that she had repeatedly provided.

[00:24:34] Speaker 00:
And so we believe that that's enough to create dispute of fact on that point.

[00:24:39] Speaker 00:
She had previously disclosed that several times and genuinely believed that that was what was being asked, and the government has not presented evidence to contradict that.

[00:24:52] Speaker 00:
On the question of whether that duress is not enough to show the lack of purposeful assistance,

[00:25:01] Speaker 00:
Again, go back to the question of the extenuating circumstances.

[00:25:05] Speaker 00:
Here, she was not making a conscious decision because of the trauma response that she testified about, that she was in shock, that she had been previously attacked by the person who was ordering her to commit this action.

[00:25:18] Speaker 00:
And finally, the government argues that her explanations are implausible.

[00:25:25] Speaker 00:
But in this case, her explanations are not blatantly contradicted by the record.

[00:25:29] Speaker 00:
In fact, they are consistent with the record.

[00:25:31] Speaker 00:
And the fact that she cannot come forward with more evidence is because of the delay in bringing this case at this time.

[00:25:36] Speaker 00:
She took a deposition of Dr. Woodward, or Mr. Woodward, who was present for her

[00:25:44] Speaker 00:
interview regarding her military service.

[00:25:46] Speaker 00:
He does not even recall his process, let alone her specific answers in that case.

[00:25:51] Speaker 00:
And given the key issues of fact in this case regarding Miss Edison's mental state in Trusina, what she knew regarding war crimes at the time that she answered her questions and the questions that were asked in her interviews as part of her immigration process would be inappropriate.

[00:26:07] Speaker 00:
The district court erred by drawing credibility determinations against Miss Edison, and this court should reverse and remand.

[00:26:13] Speaker 01:
Thank you very much.

[00:26:15] Speaker 01:
We thank both counsel for their presentations in this matter.

[00:26:18] Speaker 01:
This case is submitted.