[00:00:01] Speaker 01:
with 24-9573, Jimenez versus Bondy.

[00:00:06] Speaker 01:
Mr. Barringer.

[00:00:07] Speaker 03:
Good morning, judges.

[00:00:10] Speaker 03:
Matthew Barringer on behalf of the petitioners.

[00:00:15] Speaker 03:
So first and foremost, Your Honors, I think the first thing that the Court needs to note, that both with the Board of Immigration Appeals and with the immigration judge, that they found the petitioner to be credible in all of his testimony.

[00:00:31] Speaker 03:
So everything that the respondent, excuse me, petitioner had stated during his hearing from the immigration judge is undisputed, we would assert.

[00:00:42] Speaker 03:
Now, whether or not that fits in with an asylum and things we're going to talk about here in a moment, that's for contention.

[00:00:47] Speaker 03:
But everything he said was credible.

[00:00:49] Speaker 03:
So with that, I want to just go over some seminal facts I think are very important for today's hearing.

[00:00:55] Speaker 03:
First and foremost, the petitioner was part and participated in the Colombian Liberal Party as far back as 2015.

[00:01:04] Speaker 03:
He also, another facet of his life is he was an owner of a factory for furniture.

[00:01:09] Speaker 03:
and alike.

[00:01:10] Speaker 03:
And third, he also worked in the Colombian prosecutor's office as, I think we would call the United States as an intern, aspiring to become an attorney.

[00:01:18] Speaker 03:
Now, during which time he worked with domestic violence victims and other, helping with investigation of other criminal activity.

[00:01:27] Speaker 03:
Now, as it relates to the Colombian, him being the Colombian Liberal Party, he participated by canvassing.

[00:01:34] Speaker 03:
The record shows he was canvassing, was going out, giving out pamphlets, campaigning for

[00:01:38] Speaker 03:
the party for which he was a part of.

[00:01:40] Speaker 03:
So he was out in the open.

[00:01:41] Speaker 03:
People in the community knew that he was part of that political party.

[00:01:48] Speaker 03:
And at the same time, to shift gears, as I said beforehand, he was also with the prosecutor's office.

[00:01:56] Speaker 03:
So while at the prosecutor's office, as referenced in the briefs, he was approached by Leonor Algono Romero to evict a certain individual from

[00:02:07] Speaker 03:
her home.

[00:02:08] Speaker 03:
Again, in America, I think we'd say it was through divorce settlement and she was trying to get him out.

[00:02:13] Speaker 03:
Now, this house was also kind of a house of ill repute.

[00:02:16] Speaker 03:
It was a house that there were running drugs and other criminal activity.

[00:02:21] Speaker 03:
The petitioner learned that while he was investing in trying to get this individual out.

[00:02:29] Speaker 03:
So both of these instances

[00:02:32] Speaker 03:
happened June of 2022.

[00:02:34] Speaker 03:
At the same time, there was also an election.

[00:02:40] Speaker 03:
That election included a Federico Gutierrez.

[00:02:44] Speaker 03:
He was an individual who was with the Colombian Liberal Party, and then also a Gustav Petro.

[00:02:53] Speaker 03:
Now, very quickly, a little bit about Gustav Petro.

[00:02:55] Speaker 03:
Petro was a bit of a pain in the side of the Colombian government.

[00:03:00] Speaker 03:
He was a guerrilla.

[00:03:01] Speaker 03:
He was a part of M-19, and he was the first president, first leftist president to be appointed.

[00:03:08] Speaker 03:
Now, the record did reflect in the testimony from the petitioner that Mr... Let me shift gears for a moment.

[00:03:17] Speaker 03:
Don Raffa, the individual who was being evicted, also had connection with and was also a part of that party, the leftist party.

[00:03:28] Speaker 03:
So we have two separate

[00:03:31] Speaker 03:
If this party are not M-19 itself though.

[00:03:36] Speaker 03:
And Your Honor, we're referring to as him as to who, I'm sorry.

[00:03:39] Speaker 03:
The person who's being evicted.

[00:03:41] Speaker 03:
Correct.

[00:03:41] Speaker 03:
He was part of the FARCC, but I would say that the two of them aligned with one another.

[00:03:47] Speaker 03:
Both were both engaged in the southern part of Columbia, engaging in guerrilla warfare.

[00:03:52] Speaker 03:
We're trying to overthrow the government.

[00:03:54] Speaker 03:
In fact, Mr. Petro had been jailed on several occasions prior to his ascension to the presidency of that of Columbia.

[00:04:02] Speaker 03:
So we have two threats that were subsequently made while the petitioner was both campaigning for the Columbia Liberal Party, first, and second, while he was a member of the district attorney's office, I would say loosely.

[00:04:22] Speaker 03:
Prosecutor's Office there in Columbia.

[00:04:26] Speaker 03:
There were four threats that were levied against the petitioner.

[00:04:31] Speaker 02:
Counsel, can I ask you about waiver?

[00:04:33] Speaker 02:
So the government says that you waived parts of your argument.

[00:04:38] Speaker 02:
What's your response to that?

[00:04:40] Speaker 03:
Your Honor, which parts specifically?

[00:04:42] Speaker 02:
They said that you waived any allegations that he suffered physical threats.

[00:04:47] Speaker 02:
and that in the unable or unwilling prong of the refugee definition that any ties that the persecutors had to the president who won that election.

[00:04:58] Speaker 02:
Both of those arguments were not raised below.

[00:05:01] Speaker 02:
Certainly the latter is not part of the BIA's order and that you don't, so that they're not properly before us.

[00:05:08] Speaker 02:
And of course, government says that in response.

[00:05:10] Speaker 02:
We don't have a reply brief from you, so I want to give you an opportunity to address waiver.

[00:05:14] Speaker 03:
So I do not believe in our brief, our opening brief, that we waived those arguments.

[00:05:19] Speaker 03:
I think that we raised both of those arguments as to... But what about whether they were preserved below then?

[00:05:27] Speaker 03:
We can't hear an argument that wasn't made to the VIA.

[00:05:31] Speaker 03:
Understood.

[00:05:32] Speaker 03:
Understood.

[00:05:32] Speaker 03:
And we were in counsel for those arguments.

[00:05:36] Speaker 03:
So I would just have to stand the arguments that I'm going to be making to the court today.

[00:05:42] Speaker 03:
Yeah, we as subsequent counsel received it and made the arguments that we felt were appropriate from the record that was established with the immigration judge.

[00:05:56] Speaker 04:
What's the primary fact that demonstrates past persecution?

[00:06:03] Speaker 03:
That's a very good question.

[00:06:04] Speaker 03:
Judge, I do not.

[00:06:06] Speaker 03:
Frankly, I think we're a little weak on past persecution.

[00:06:10] Speaker 03:
I think that there are arguments to be made that the cumulative nature of the four incidences, the threatening him at his place of work with a pistol, him contacting his child at school with what seemed to be an attempted kidnap of his child, pointing a gun at one of his employees at the factory, threatening, hey,

[00:06:32] Speaker 03:
Where is he?

[00:06:33] Speaker 03:
And in those, in that interaction, he both said, not only because of their Colombian liberal party, but also the fact that he was hindering their ability to operate out of this house owned by Don Rafa.

[00:06:51] Speaker 04:
I mean, those certainly are and could be perceived as threatening, but we have cases also that

[00:07:01] Speaker 04:
probably have worse facts for the petitioner where we've affirmed the BIA's denial of asylum or withholding of removal.

[00:07:11] Speaker 04:
What's the best case that would support your fact pattern?

[00:07:16] Speaker 03:
Well, that's why I respond the way I did, Judge, is that, as I said, I don't think that we do have problems with past persecution.

[00:07:22] Speaker 03:
I do think that there is some case law that we have an argument, a prima facie case, if you would.

[00:07:27] Speaker 03:
But I would agree with you, Judge,

[00:07:31] Speaker 03:
were tough on that.

[00:07:32] Speaker 03:
That said, though, the immigration judge at the trial court level ruled that the threats that were received by the petitioner were solely private.

[00:07:47] Speaker 03:
We disagree with that.

[00:07:49] Speaker 03:
At worst, they were a mixed nature, both in his capacity as working for the Colombian Liberal Party and also his capacity working for

[00:07:59] Speaker 03:
the national prosecutor's office.

[00:08:02] Speaker 03:
The immigration judge cannot ascertain exactly, it doesn't have to be exactly what it is.

[00:08:09] Speaker 03:
The central reason is really what the immigration judge should be looking at.

[00:08:14] Speaker 03:
An immigration judge, in our view, just ignored the fact that there was these threats that he was in the Colombian National Party and a part of the prosecutor's office.

[00:08:25] Speaker 03:
It wasn't a situation where the petitioner's going out and just trying to get a tenant out of his house.

[00:08:31] Speaker 03:
He was approaching his capacity working for the government in Columbia to have this individual removed.

[00:08:38] Speaker 01:
You just said, I think, that the test the IJ is supposed to rely on is what was the central motive?

[00:08:50] Speaker 01:
Is that correct?

[00:08:51] Speaker 01:
Do you agree with that?

[00:08:52] Speaker 01:
I would agree with that.

[00:08:53] Speaker 01:
Okay.

[00:08:53] Speaker 01:
And so you have two possibilities.

[00:08:57] Speaker 01:
The IJ could make a finding that in the circumstances here, it was the eviction that was the big thing.

[00:09:07] Speaker 01:
That was the major issue.

[00:09:09] Speaker 03:
My response would be that the IJ can do that, but not to the exclusion of the other.

[00:09:15] Speaker 01:
I think... Well, if what you're looking for is the central motive,

[00:09:20] Speaker 01:
then you are excluding the lesser motives.

[00:09:23] Speaker 01:
He could acknowledge that there might have been something else going on, but the core of it was he didn't like being evicted from this home, this residence that he was using for illegal activity.

[00:09:36] Speaker 03:
I understand that.

[00:09:38] Speaker 01:
Don't we have to defer to the IJA on that?

[00:09:41] Speaker 03:
I would say that that is...

[00:09:49] Speaker 03:
I would assert that the ultimate finding is a matter of law, not a matter of fact.

[00:09:53] Speaker 03:
And I think that the court can look at that finding de novo rather with substantial evidence as to facts.

[00:09:59] Speaker 04:
We had to help out a little.

[00:10:01] Speaker 04:
We had a recent case, published case, OCV.

[00:10:05] Speaker 04:
Did you happen to run across that?

[00:10:08] Speaker 04:
I have not.

[00:10:09] Speaker 04:
It's just out in the last couple weeks happened to be on the panel that that case discusses circumstances where you can have a mixed motive.

[00:10:19] Speaker 04:
So you might have an argument that there's two central reasons.

[00:10:30] Speaker 03:
And Your Honor, I was going to get there.

[00:10:32] Speaker 03:
And the court just articulated where I was going to go, is that there is a central motive, and there can be a mixed motive.

[00:10:40] Speaker 03:
And the reason that I think that the court had reasoned that is that they cannot be looked at in a vacuum.

[00:10:45] Speaker 03:
We don't need to know exactly.

[00:10:48] Speaker 03:
what the persecutor's reasoning is other than what is put before the record.

[00:10:54] Speaker 03:
And what was in the record with the immigration judge was both, as I said, your snitch as relates to the National Prosecutor's Office and death to all those in the Colombian Liberal Party.

[00:11:09] Speaker 03:
And so running short on time,

[00:11:12] Speaker 03:
The item is this, is that while I conceded to a degree that past persecution were weak, and I think that when it comes to well-founded fear, I think that the petitioner does have a strong argument with regard to that.

[00:11:23] Speaker 04:
Why can't he relocate within Columbia?

[00:11:27] Speaker 03:
Because it's a national office.

[00:11:30] Speaker 03:
You have Don Rafa, who the petitioner testified to has connection with the president of Columbia.

[00:11:39] Speaker 03:
who, as I say at the very beginning of my remarks, is a far-leftist Marxist.

[00:11:43] Speaker 03:
He is well established.

[00:11:46] Speaker 03:
And he was a posit to that of the Colombian Liberal Party.

[00:11:50] Speaker 03:
So the idea, just because, as the IJ found that he was able to go and relocate for three weeks at his mom's house outside of Bogota, that in and of itself is dispositive as to whether or not he can safely relocate.

[00:12:02] Speaker 04:
We would assert that by virtue of the... Well, he has to show that the government's unwilling or unable to protect him.

[00:12:10] Speaker 03:
Agreed.

[00:12:11] Speaker 03:
And in the record below, the petitioner did credibly testify that it had been reported and that he was concerned

[00:12:23] Speaker 03:
that it would take time before the prosecutor's office could get around to prosecuting any of these allegations.

[00:12:31] Speaker 02:
Yeah, but doesn't the record also show that when he was attempting the eviction that search warrants were executed at Don Rafa's residence and that was what led to some of the threats?

[00:12:41] Speaker 02:
In other words, the government was involved in a manner that would suggest that they

[00:12:47] Speaker 02:
were able to take action against these persons who may persecute him.

[00:12:50] Speaker 02:
So doesn't that sort of lean the opposite way?

[00:12:53] Speaker 03:
Well, my response would be is that certainly there were actions taken by the Colombian government to prosecute Don Rafa.

[00:13:02] Speaker 03:
That does not necessarily mean that they were there to protect the petitioner.

[00:13:06] Speaker 03:
They had executed those search warrants.

[00:13:08] Speaker 03:
But if I remember correctly, there was nothing in the record that showed that Don Rafa or any of his associates had been arrested.

[00:13:15] Speaker 03:
It's the old adage, justice delayed as does justice denied.

[00:13:19] Speaker 03:
And I think that's the case here.

[00:13:21] Speaker 03:
Certainly, we come across this all the time, where there is certain action.

[00:13:24] Speaker 03:
But whether that action is actionable to protect the victim is mounting very much of the time.

[00:13:37] Speaker 03:
And I would like to reserve the rebuttal that I may have, Judge.

[00:13:40] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:13:47] Speaker 01:
Ms.

[00:13:47] Speaker 01:
Arthur.

[00:13:52] Speaker 00:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:13:53] Speaker 00:
May it please the Court, Ashley Arthur for the Attorney General of the United States.

[00:13:57] Speaker 00:
The petition for review should be denied for four reasons.

[00:14:01] Speaker 00:
Two of which are just positive.

[00:14:02] Speaker 00:
Real quickly, unable and unwilling is just positive.

[00:14:05] Speaker 00:
Nexus is just positive.

[00:14:07] Speaker 00:
And then on top of that, petitioner failed to establish past persecution that rose to that extreme level of persecution.

[00:14:14] Speaker 00:
And he failed to establish that he cannot relocate away from the harm he fears.

[00:14:21] Speaker 00:
With respect to this unable and unwilling argument, substantial evidence supports the agency's decision because

[00:14:31] Speaker 00:
We have, for example, in the record that shows Columbia Health officials condemned the property that Don Roth occupied that is the man that petitioner fears.

[00:14:42] Speaker 00:
We have evidence that shows that petitioner testified that criminals were prosecuted, quote, normally, end quote,

[00:14:51] Speaker 00:
He confirmed there's a process in place to investigate criminals.

[00:14:54] Speaker 00:
He confirmed that criminals are held accountable.

[00:14:58] Speaker 00:
His own father, at the time of his 2024 merits hearing, continued to work for the criminal justice system.

[00:15:05] Speaker 00:
And he stated that his father reported no problems and that his father is not corrupt.

[00:15:12] Speaker 00:
Petitioner's wife also testified to the fact that not everyone in the Columbia government is

[00:15:17] Speaker 00:
In Fark's pocket, she testified, quote, good people, end quote, are in the Columbia government.

[00:15:23] Speaker 00:
And that's at page 295 in the record.

[00:15:27] Speaker 00:
As for those two police encounters, the petitioner relies on as somehow proving this unable and unwilling element.

[00:15:37] Speaker 00:
First, the first encounter, petitioner was not asking for help.

[00:15:41] Speaker 00:
He was there in his capacity as a provisional lawyer.

[00:15:45] Speaker 00:
The second encounter occurred right before he left Columbia, and we know that he told the officer about his problems.

[00:15:54] Speaker 00:
And the officer reportedly said, quote, it's best you leave, end quote.

[00:15:58] Speaker 00:
And that's pretty much all we know about that.

[00:16:01] Speaker 04:
Is it correct that Columbia has a national police force?

[00:16:07] Speaker 00:
Yes, there's a national police force.

[00:16:08] Speaker 00:
But these, from what I understand in the record, were local police.

[00:16:12] Speaker 00:
and a local patrol officer.

[00:16:14] Speaker 00:
At this time, too, when he approaches this officer, he is already at his mother's country home.

[00:16:19] Speaker 00:
So he approaches an officer that's not even in the area where he's experiencing the problems, which is Bogota itself.

[00:16:25] Speaker 00:
And these two brief encounters with these officers, especially the remark from the latter officer,

[00:16:33] Speaker 00:
do not prove that the government of Columbia as a whole is unable or unwilling to protect.

[00:16:39] Speaker 00:
There's no evidence that the officers are hostile.

[00:16:41] Speaker 00:
There's no evidence that the officers are high ranking.

[00:16:45] Speaker 00:
And this court sister circuit in the seventh has pointed out that a police officer may express apathy, but a one-off conversation with such a police officer doesn't necessarily prove that the government is unable or willing to protect the petitioner.

[00:16:59] Speaker 04:
Well, who else could he have reported these threats to?

[00:17:02] Speaker 00:
Petitioner could have reported these threats to many of his law enforcement contacts that he had through his job at the prosecutor's office for two and a half years, or his father himself, who works in the criminal justice system.

[00:17:14] Speaker 04:
What does the record reflect, that he did report the threats?

[00:17:18] Speaker 04:
No, he did not report it.

[00:17:19] Speaker 04:
He could do something about them, other than look for police?

[00:17:22] Speaker 00:
He worked for the National Columbia Prosecutor's Office for two and a half years, and he never reached out to any other law enforcement contacts.

[00:17:30] Speaker 00:
He never asked for help except for that one interaction before he left Columbia.

[00:17:36] Speaker 00:
So that alone, that unable and unwilling element, is sufficient to deny the petition for review.

[00:17:43] Speaker 00:
And Nexus is also just positive.

[00:17:46] Speaker 04:
Did you run across our OCV case?

[00:17:48] Speaker 00:
I did, Your Honor.

[00:17:50] Speaker 04:
Couldn't we have a mixed motive theory here that might save the day for him?

[00:17:58] Speaker 00:
So this court,

[00:17:59] Speaker 00:
does recognize and always has recognized that there can be two central reasons that are competing for each other.

[00:18:06] Speaker 00:
But he doesn't establish that.

[00:18:08] Speaker 00:
Petitioner doesn't identify record evidence that compels that conclusion.

[00:18:12] Speaker 00:
And one of the main problems in OCV was this family particular social group issue and how the board and MRS basically created a situation where it

[00:18:26] Speaker 00:
prematurely stopped its analysis once it discovered this unprotected ground.

[00:18:32] Speaker 00:
It kind of foreclosed a mixed motive opportunity for family group, social group claims.

[00:18:40] Speaker 00:
That is not the issue here.

[00:18:42] Speaker 00:
And here, the agency properly discussed the protected grounds and properly discussed the non-protected grounds to conclude that the evidence

[00:18:52] Speaker 00:
didn't show that the central reason here was a protected ground.

[00:18:56] Speaker 00:
What we have is henchmen who arrive at the factory and they mention that there's ongoing search and seizures, which is interesting because at this point, it's September, the men arrive, Kapan season is already over, President Petro is already in office, and yet there's still ongoing search and seizures.

[00:19:18] Speaker 00:
So that really undermines that there's an excess and unwilling

[00:19:22] Speaker 00:
in that sense.

[00:19:23] Speaker 00:
And also, the petitioner met Don Rafa once face to face for a negotiation in his capacity as a provisional lawyer.

[00:19:31] Speaker 00:
He was trying to get the back pay.

[00:19:33] Speaker 00:
And that interaction happened in June when the campaign season was still ongoing.

[00:19:38] Speaker 00:
Don Rafa does not mention politics.

[00:19:40] Speaker 00:
Don Rafa does not harm petitioner.

[00:19:44] Speaker 00:
So really, at the bottom of this Nexus question is, is the record evidence so compelling?

[00:19:52] Speaker 00:
that no reasonable fact finder could find against Petitioner here on Nexus.

[00:19:58] Speaker 00:
I say the answer is no.

[00:19:59] Speaker 00:
I think it's pretty obvious.

[00:20:01] Speaker 00:
And my friend has already admitted that his past persecution claim is fairly weak.

[00:20:08] Speaker 02:
Can I ask you about the attempted kidnapping of the son, which Petitioner witnessed?

[00:20:14] Speaker 02:
Again, the immigration judge found his testimony credible.

[00:20:17] Speaker 02:
And that one to me seems perhaps categorically different in that it's alleged that

[00:20:22] Speaker 02:
One of the persecutors not just approached the son but actually physically grabbed the son, put his hand around his mouth, that required an assault of the potential persecutor to get him off his son.

[00:20:35] Speaker 02:
So how do we weigh the findings regarding that particular incident when it comes to persecution?

[00:20:41] Speaker 02:
And then if you recall, was there any allegation or tying that incident particularly to a protected group

[00:20:51] Speaker 00:
I will try my best to answer your question with respect to how it would apply to all the elements without muddling them too much.

[00:20:58] Speaker 00:
So first, petitioner and his wife, when we're talking about the harm itself and how that would speak to perhaps whether the harm rose to the extreme level of persecution, petitioner and his wife both testified that they did not

[00:21:12] Speaker 00:
suffer physical harm.

[00:21:14] Speaker 00:
At page 290 in the record, petitioner's wife testified, quote, physically, thank God, nothing happened to my children or my husband, end quote.

[00:21:23] Speaker 00:
Petitioner also testified, no, no, not physical, no, thank God.

[00:21:29] Speaker 00:
So if petitioners themselves do not consider that to be physically harmful, that should end there, and counsel's assertions to the contrary are not evidence.

[00:21:38] Speaker 00:
Now, it's obviously

[00:21:40] Speaker 00:
a stressful and psychologically unsettling event.

[00:21:43] Speaker 00:
It's a parent's worst nightmare for a strange man to approach your child.

[00:21:48] Speaker 00:
And the IHA did consider that.

[00:21:50] Speaker 00:
And the IHA still concluded that, cumulatively, this record does not compel that conclusion that the harm rose.

[00:21:57] Speaker 00:
And that strange man at the school did not mention politics or Don Rafa.

[00:22:03] Speaker 00:
So there's no nexus there.

[00:22:05] Speaker 00:
And as for

[00:22:09] Speaker 00:
The other part of your question, which was, I believe, how it related to... No, you answered it.

[00:22:16] Speaker 02:
I want to know about persecution at Nexus.

[00:22:22] Speaker 00:
So I'm just going to move on real quickly to relocation because my friend

[00:22:28] Speaker 00:
understands that that past persecution part of his claims look pretty weak.

[00:22:32] Speaker 00:
Relocation's not established here.

[00:22:34] Speaker 00:
He bore the burden because he didn't establish all these elements of his past persecution, the persecution claim within the meaning of the Immigration Nationality Act, meaning he didn't establish unable and willing, he didn't establish nexus.

[00:22:46] Speaker 00:
He admits that his claim about the harm rising to the level of past persecution is pretty weak.

[00:22:53] Speaker 00:
So he bore the burden of showing that he can't reasonably relocate within.

[00:22:57] Speaker 00:
Colombia.

[00:22:58] Speaker 00:
And here he did live peacefully at his mother's home for three weeks.

[00:23:03] Speaker 00:
He didn't try to relocate beyond very far from the source of his problems.

[00:23:08] Speaker 00:
His problem was in Bogota.

[00:23:10] Speaker 00:
Colombia is an enormous country.

[00:23:13] Speaker 00:
None of his family members have been contacted about his whereabouts.

[00:23:18] Speaker 00:
And while he does try to tether some connection between Don Rafa and the current president,

[00:23:27] Speaker 00:
His brief lacks record citation to support those assertions.

[00:23:33] Speaker 00:
And I maintain that he's exhausted any resemblance of a government-sponsored claim because he did not argue before the board in his counseled BIA appeal that there is a government-sponsored claim here.

[00:23:48] Speaker 00:
He didn't dispute at all that the IJ's findings regarding the private factors, he didn't dispute that that's all he feared.

[00:23:57] Speaker 00:
And if the court has no other questions, I will conclude.

[00:24:02] Speaker 00:
The petition for review should be denied, Your Honors, because he does not compel reversal of the agency's decision.

[00:24:09] Speaker 00:
There's no record evidence that would compel reversal of the agency's decision.

[00:24:13] Speaker 00:
And that's the burden the petitioner must meet here today.

[00:24:16] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:24:17] Speaker 01:
Thank you, Counsel.

[00:24:22] Speaker 01:
You have a minute and a half?

[00:24:23] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:24:27] Speaker 03:
Thank you, Honors.

[00:24:30] Speaker 03:
So, to summarize, we would assert that Nexus has been established, that the threats were due to a political belief and his political association.

[00:24:44] Speaker 03:
The threats were mixed, one in his capacity as a prosecutor, one as his position within the Colombian Liberal Party, and again, therefore, Nexus has been established.

[00:24:54] Speaker 03:
He does have a well-founded fear of returning to that of Columbia, both objectively and subjectively.

[00:25:01] Speaker 03:
Objectively, by virtue of the threats that we've talked about earlier today, and subjectively, his positions that he held prior to him entering the United States with his family.

[00:25:15] Speaker 03:
As relates to the unwillingness to protect,

[00:25:18] Speaker 03:
I think it goes to the fact that even though his position within the prosecutor's office with the new regime that had been in place, that even with what the government would argue with those safeguards, didn't exist.

[00:25:35] Speaker 03:
And he still was not protected, even though they were doing search warrants, even though they were doing these other activities.

[00:25:43] Speaker 03:
And finally, as it relates to his relocation, we've already gone over that.

[00:25:47] Speaker 03:
So with that your honors we would ask that the petition be granted and matter be remanded with further instructions Thank you very much for your time your honors.

[00:25:55] Speaker 03:
Thank you counsel case is submitted and counselor excused