[00:00:00] Speaker 02:
Good morning.

[00:00:01] Speaker 02:
May it please the court.

[00:00:02] Speaker 02:
Eliodoro Moreno Jr.

[00:00:03] Speaker 02:
for the petitioners.

[00:00:04] Speaker 02:
Ms.

[00:00:05] Speaker 02:
Rosas-Roman and her two minor children, Yereni and Brian.

[00:00:09] Speaker 02:
I would like to reserve five minutes for rebuttal.

[00:00:12] Speaker 02:
Sure.

[00:00:13] Speaker 02:
In this case, the record evidence compels the conclusion that Ms.

[00:00:18] Speaker 02:
Rosas-Roman was targeted due to her gender when she was repeatedly called a bitch and raped within the context of pervasive violence against women in Mexico.

[00:00:28] Speaker 02:
No other reason exists in the record for her assailants' actions.

[00:00:34] Speaker 02:
Here, bitch has no other possible interpretation but as a gender-based slur akin to the N-word for a black person, wetback for an undocumented immigrant, or faggot for a gay or transgender person.

[00:00:52] Speaker 02:
Merriam-Webster defines bitch as the female dog or, quote, a generalized term of abuse and disparagement for a woman.

[00:01:04] Speaker 02:
Imagine the exact same facts, but with a gay or transgender person who is picked up, repeatedly called faggot and raped.

[00:01:14] Speaker 02:
The nexus in that case is obvious.

[00:01:17] Speaker 02:
It is equally obvious in this case.

[00:01:20] Speaker 02:
The agency's role is to look at the language used by the persecutor and determine whether that establishes nexus.

[00:01:28] Speaker 02:
Reversal is required unless this court finds bitch is not a gender-based slur.

[00:01:34] Speaker 02:
The agency here... Counsel, can I ask?

[00:01:36] Speaker 01:
So the IJ thought that the word bitch was tangential to a motive of just a general motive to commit crime.

[00:01:47] Speaker 01:
Why do you think that's insufficient evidence to support the agency?

[00:01:51] Speaker 02:
Your Honor, because no other reason was given for Ms.

[00:01:57] Speaker 02:
Rosa's Romine being picked up, called bitch, and then immediately raped.

[00:02:02] Speaker 02:
and then she was called bitch while she was being raped, your honor.

[00:02:05] Speaker 01:
So do you agree the agency, the decision seems to say well if a woman is a victim of a crime that itself couldn't be enough to

[00:02:18] Speaker 01:
or necessarily to meet the nexus standard for this particular social group.

[00:02:24] Speaker 01:
And I assume you would agree with that.

[00:02:26] Speaker 01:
So it's the genderized terms and the nature of the crime itself, the rape, that tilt us in a different direction in your view.

[00:02:35] Speaker 02:
Absolutely, Your Honor, but also in conjunction with the voluminous country condition evidence that's showing pervasive violence against women in Mexico.

[00:02:44] Speaker 04:
So the agency here- Elsa Canales asked on this point what creates an inference of nexus is there were

[00:02:53] Speaker 04:
This is not a case, for example, where they actually robbed her or anything like that in addition to the gender-based violence.

[00:03:00] Speaker 04:
Is that correct?

[00:03:01] Speaker 02:
Absolutely, Your Honor.

[00:03:02] Speaker 02:
And one of the big distinguishing factors from all the cases that the government cited is that almost all of them involved mixed motives.

[00:03:11] Speaker 02:
There was another reason.

[00:03:12] Speaker 02:
Give me your land.

[00:03:13] Speaker 02:
Give me money.

[00:03:15] Speaker 02:
Stealing something else from them.

[00:03:16] Speaker 02:
Here, there was no other reason given.

[00:03:20] Speaker 02:
The only thing that happened here was that she was called bitch and then immediately raped.

[00:03:27] Speaker 01:
My reading of the record was that the agency thought that the only motive was a desire to commit crime.

[00:03:35] Speaker 01:
So I thought this might actually be a mixed motive type case, but you don't think so.

[00:03:41] Speaker 02:
I don't think so, Your Honor.

[00:03:43] Speaker 02:
And the reason I don't think so is because there is no reason.

[00:03:46] Speaker 02:
There is no evidence of any other reason given here.

[00:03:49] Speaker 02:
The only thing that the government is relying on is speculation, not based on the record.

[00:03:55] Speaker 02:
Obviously there is some speculative factor whenever you're making an analysis of what may happen in the future, but it has to be based on the record.

[00:04:04] Speaker 02:
Here there's nothing.

[00:04:05] Speaker 02:
that they're basing their conclusion that this was random generalized violence.

[00:04:10] Speaker 02:
There was nothing random about this.

[00:04:11] Speaker 01:
Well, I guess I take it your argument is there's no evidence of dual motives, but do you agree that the agency was relying on crime as the motive that it thought was driving this matter?

[00:04:24] Speaker 02:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:04:25] Speaker 01:
Let me ask you this, because some of our cases about mixed motive say that the agency should consider evidence of alternative motives, and it shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking that there's a false dichotomy that just because there's one motive that might not relate to a protected ground, it should also look at evidence of another motive, which might be membership in this PSG of Mexican women.

[00:04:52] Speaker 01:
Could the agency have erred in not considering that evidence or making this dichotomy as either one or the other?

[00:05:01] Speaker 02:
yes your honor uh... they would have but i i would say that uh... that the court would not even need to get to that point because really this court's case law makes clear an applicant's uncontroverted credible testimonies to the persecutors motive may be sufficient to establish nexus said this in garcia v wilkinson and then also uh... this court has made clear that when there's no evidence of other possible motives

[00:05:30] Speaker 02:
There, the court should credit the respondent's testimony, especially if it's supported by the only evidence that exists here in this case.

[00:05:38] Speaker 02:
I would argue that the government stating that this is just general crime is pure speculation.

[00:05:44] Speaker 02:
In other cases where this court has found that it is just pure crime, they have found so because the persecutor themselves gave evidence of that through, give me your money, give me your land.

[00:05:56] Speaker 02:
None of that occurred in this case.

[00:05:58] Speaker 02:
But I take it that

[00:06:00] Speaker 00:
not to make the argument for you that you want to keep this a single motive case.

[00:06:04] Speaker 00:
If it were a mixed motive case, you still think you could prevail.

[00:06:08] Speaker 02:
Oh, absolutely.

[00:06:09] Speaker 00:
But you don't think we need to go there in this case.

[00:06:11] Speaker 02:
No.

[00:06:11] Speaker 02:
Exactly, Your Honor.

[00:06:12] Speaker 02:
I do believe that we win under either analysis.

[00:06:15] Speaker 02:
But of course, I don't believe that we need to go there.

[00:06:17] Speaker 02:
And then here, again, what the government

[00:06:22] Speaker 02:
in the way that the government erred is that they divorced Ms.

[00:06:25] Speaker 02:
Rosa's Roman status from its analysis of her assailants' actions and the surrounding circumstances.

[00:06:31] Speaker 02:
If this were truly a case of random generalized violence as the agency held, then that would require the record to demonstrate that a man walking down the street is equally as likely to be picked up, repeatedly called bitch, and raped.

[00:06:45] Speaker 02:
The record compels the contrary conclusion here.

[00:06:47] Speaker 02:
For example,

[00:06:49] Speaker 02:
Gender-based violence against women and girls is widespread in Mexico, so much so that the UN has called it a pandemic.

[00:06:55] Speaker 02:
It is estimated that 66% of women in Mexico have suffered some form of gender-based violence.

[00:07:02] Speaker 02:
Seven women are killed daily.

[00:07:05] Speaker 02:
In Mexico, 92% of cases go unpunished.

[00:07:08] Speaker 02:
Thousands of women have been reported missing.

[00:07:11] Speaker 02:
Violence against women is so rife in Mexico that there's no political cost for those who ignore it.

[00:07:17] Speaker 02:
Critically, the country conditions state that gender-based violence in Mexico are not isolated sporadic or individual episodes of violence, but rather, quote, a structural situation and a social and cultural phenomenon rooted in customs and beliefs and are a result of a culture of gender-based violence and discrimination.

[00:07:38] Speaker 02:
The attempts by the agency to couch this country conditions evidence

[00:07:41] Speaker 02:
as generalized evidence was error.

[00:07:44] Speaker 02:
As the examples illustrate, the hundreds of pages of country condition evidence are specifically tailored to Ms.

[00:07:50] Speaker 02:
Rosas-Román's particular circumstances because they describe the rampant violence against Mexican females, a particular social group that she is a member of.

[00:07:59] Speaker 02:
Simply because Ms.

[00:08:00] Speaker 02:
Rosas-Román is not personally described in country conditions does not make them

[00:08:05] Speaker 02:
General, the agency commits this error regularly, stating that country conditions are magically general, even if they specifically talk about people similarly situated as the petitioner is here in this case.

[00:08:19] Speaker 01:
Well, let me ask this.

[00:08:20] Speaker 01:
I mean, the logical extension of your argument would be that any woman that is subject to removal to Mexico might face a particularized risk of harm if returned to Mexico.

[00:08:31] Speaker 01:
Is that what you're getting at with the country conditions evidence, or does there need to be more or something different about this case?

[00:08:37] Speaker 02:
Oh, there is something more and different about this case.

[00:08:39] Speaker 02:
It's not just the country conditions.

[00:08:41] Speaker 02:
The court has to look at the totality of the circumstances surrounding the incidents that Ms.

[00:08:47] Speaker 02:
Rosas-Román suffered.

[00:08:48] Speaker 02:
Here, the specific fact that she was repeatedly called bitch and then immediately raped, I think that is critical in conjunction with the country conditions.

[00:08:56] Speaker 02:
What the country conditions do is that they provide

[00:08:59] Speaker 02:
important context to this court for evaluating the actions of the persecutor and also what the respondents suffered.

[00:09:06] Speaker 02:
This court made that very, very clear.

[00:09:12] Speaker 02:
in Sharma, a case that the government cited themselves that says that political and social turmoil in the petitioner's home country can provide relevant context for the petitioner's personal experiences.

[00:09:25] Speaker 02:
And that's something exactly what the country conditions do in this case.

[00:09:30] Speaker 02:
So here the agency found that Ms.

[00:09:32] Speaker 02:
Rosas-Romain's PhD of Mexican females was cognizable, that her rate rose to the level of persecution, and the record compels the conclusion that one reason for that harm was an account of her gender.

[00:09:44] Speaker 02:
As a result, remand to the agency is required for the agency to apply the presumption that Ms.

[00:09:50] Speaker 02:
Rosas-Romain suffered past persecution, and thus she has a rebuttable presumption of a well-founded fear.

[00:09:56] Speaker 01:
There was something in the record where she initially tried to report the crime to, was it to a district attorney, to a prosecutor's office or to the police?

[00:10:06] Speaker 02:
No, first she went to a police station.

[00:10:07] Speaker 01:
Police station.

[00:10:08] Speaker 01:
And then she was turned away.

[00:10:09] Speaker 01:
That's right.

[00:10:10] Speaker 01:
Now, do you ascribe that as something that supports your evidence that violence happens against women with impunity, that there's no accountability for it?

[00:10:24] Speaker 01:
Or there was a flavor of it that it might be money related to.

[00:10:28] Speaker 01:
How would you describe that particular part?

[00:10:29] Speaker 02:
That definitely goes to unwilling and unable, and also to acquiescence in the CAD context, Your Honor.

[00:10:35] Speaker 02:
She went to try to report her.

[00:10:36] Speaker 02:
They pushed her away, tried to demand money from her.

[00:10:39] Speaker 02:
Indignant, she had to drive hours away.

[00:10:41] Speaker 02:
And then, critically, the expert, the uncontested expert, then analyzed the next evidence is very important.

[00:10:46] Speaker 02:
She went to another office.

[00:10:49] Speaker 02:
reported the incident, but then they listed the crime as simply deprivation of liberty.

[00:10:57] Speaker 02:
The expert shows that that is critical evidence demonstrating that they just laugh off gender-based violence.

[00:11:03] Speaker 01:
Now, acquiescence is not before us now.

[00:11:05] Speaker 01:
We're just looking at Nexus.

[00:11:07] Speaker 01:
Right.

[00:11:07] Speaker 01:
Okay.

[00:11:07] Speaker 01:
Right.

[00:11:08] Speaker 01:
But does any of that evidence go to Nexus itself, in your view?

[00:11:13] Speaker 02:
I think it does, Your Honor, because it corroborates the country-conditioned evidence talking about that this gender-based violence occurs with impunity within Mexico.

[00:11:22] Speaker 02:
So it's definitely another evidence of that.

[00:11:23] Speaker 02:
And with that, I would reserve the remainder of my time.

[00:11:26] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:11:39] Speaker 03:
May it please the court, Matthew George for the Attorney General.

[00:11:42] Speaker 03:
Judge Sanchez, I'd like to address your point about the reporting evidence going to Nexus.

[00:11:48] Speaker 03:
The issue with Nexus is really looking at what is the motivation of the attackers in this case.

[00:11:54] Speaker 03:
And so what other people did down the line, what especially government officials may have done down the line, doesn't really inform us of what was in the minds of the attackers at the time of the incident.

[00:12:06] Speaker 03:
That's really the focus of the Nexus inquiry.

[00:12:09] Speaker 03:
Maybe it tells us more about country conditions.

[00:12:11] Speaker 03:
It is more relevant with regard to acquiescence, which it doesn't show acquiescence in looking at the totality of the circumstances.

[00:12:20] Speaker 03:
But in terms of what motivated these particular attackers, it's completely divorced from whatever was in their mind at the time of the incident.

[00:12:29] Speaker 03:
That's really the focus of the Nexus inquiry in this case is what was in the heads of the attackers.

[00:12:36] Speaker 03:
And here the agency had two reasonable choices.

[00:12:40] Speaker 03:
One was it was motivated by petitioners' membership in a group of Mexican females.

[00:12:46] Speaker 03:
The other reasonable possibility was it was general crime and violence.

[00:12:51] Speaker 03:
I think we'd all agree it's generally violent in this area of Mexico, and there's plenty of evidence to show there's general violence in Mexico.

[00:12:59] Speaker 01:
Well, counsel, what do we make of the fact that the BIA's decision makes no mention or analysis of the use of the bitch?

[00:13:06] Speaker 01:
I think I counted four times.

[00:13:08] Speaker 01:
Every time that the attackers referred to her, they used the word bitch.

[00:13:14] Speaker 01:
They said, pretty girl.

[00:13:15] Speaker 01:
There were these genderized, there's genderized evidence of what occurred in this violent rape.

[00:13:20] Speaker 01:
And yet the BIA didn't analyze any of that.

[00:13:24] Speaker 01:
And so it makes one potentially wonder if they did consider evidence of membership in the PSG or perhaps committed error by just focusing solely on general crime as a motive, as if there might not also be another protected nexus ground.

[00:13:44] Speaker 03:
Well, here they use the words as Your Honor just did, the word solely.

[00:13:47] Speaker 03:
They said this was solely motivated by general crime and violence.

[00:13:51] Speaker 03:
I realize that it would be nicer to have a little more fulsome analysis, maybe, as your honor is pointing out.

[00:13:57] Speaker 01:
But don't our cases require some analysis as to the possibility that there is, whether it's for a central reason or a reason, that the BIA cannot ignore other evidence that might connect to Nexus as it's weighing the types of evidence that's before it?

[00:14:14] Speaker 03:
That's correct, and the board did hear.

[00:14:17] Speaker 03:
It's not a very lengthy analysis, I will admit that, but it did say we've considered the reasons the immigration judge found, and they aren't clearly erroneous, and we agree that this was solely on account of general crime and violence.

[00:14:33] Speaker 03:
And again, given those two choices that the agency had, two reasonable choices, it's not about, at this point, whether one or the other is more convincing, it's about

[00:14:44] Speaker 03:
does one now compel any reasonable fact-finder to reach that conclusion?

[00:14:49] Speaker 03:
And so, yes, there is evidence in the record of the word bitch, the word pretty, and

[00:14:57] Speaker 03:
to whatever extent we were looking for you or we know you have children or something like that, whatever that means, that could lead a reasonable fact finder to find that they were motivated in what was in the head of the attackers, that they were motivated by her membership in a group of Mexican females.

[00:15:16] Speaker 03:
However, an equally reasonable possibility is that it's just general crime and violence.

[00:15:21] Speaker 03:
I realize it's a lot easier to grab onto that general crime and violence when there is sort of that secondary motive, I think.

[00:15:27] Speaker 04:
What is the substantial evidence?

[00:15:28] Speaker 04:
What is the evidence that supports a finding of a non-gendered motive?

[00:15:35] Speaker 03:
That's what I kind of wanted to pose rhetorically in a way.

[00:15:38] Speaker 03:
It's like, if I were to, for example, go into a high crime area in a city in the United States and I am just beaten up by a gang or something, does that mean they're motivated by some

[00:15:49] Speaker 00:
manner of my identity or is it just it's generally a high crime area and then crime happens to people who go in that area I don't know that we need explicit evidence of that that should just be a but the council I could understand if it was a robbery I get it but this is not a robbery and so since that it's not being contested the social group here I think there's a whole other issue this case which is really not before us is whether this is truly a recognizable social group I agree your honor but

[00:16:20] Speaker 00:
To Judge Song's question, I mean, the words that were used and the actual act involved here, at least for a mixed motive, I mean, can it, doesn't it have to be at least something that BIA should have at least talked about?

[00:16:35] Speaker 03:
It would be nice if they said more about it, yes.

[00:16:37] Speaker 03:
But by the fact that they used the word solely, that shows that they were considering more than one particular

[00:16:44] Speaker 04:
Well, then why isn't that, I mean, how does the records not compel the finding that it's not solely generalized?

[00:16:53] Speaker 03:
I'm a little confused by that question of how the record doesn't compel.

[00:16:59] Speaker 04:
There's a standard of review here, is right, that the BIA's finding that it's 100% not a gender-based motive, essentially, has to be supported by substantial evidence.

[00:17:12] Speaker 04:
But here there's lots of evidence pointing to a gender motive.

[00:17:17] Speaker 04:
So how can we find that substantial evidence supports the BAA's finding that essentially 100% of the motive was general?

[00:17:28] Speaker 03:
Well, one example is what I pointed out in my brief of there is evidence, country conditions evidence, in the record that gangs or other organized crime engage in these sort of crime spies as sprees as the so-called spoils of war.

[00:17:42] Speaker 03:
And rape is one of those acts that is explicitly mentioned in that report.

[00:17:47] Speaker 03:
And so there is some.

[00:17:48] Speaker 03:
And there's also other reports that say it's generally violent.

[00:17:52] Speaker 03:
And crime and violence have been increasing in Mexico generally.

[00:17:58] Speaker 03:
My other point in terms of

[00:18:04] Speaker 03:
I know it's a lot easier when there is sort of that secondary motive.

[00:18:08] Speaker 03:
I think the court had mentioned theft in general or land, as my opponent mentioned, when there is that other sort of thing we can grab onto.

[00:18:17] Speaker 03:
However, that doesn't take it outside the realm of sort of general crime.

[00:18:21] Speaker 03:
Even when there's no other sort of secondary motive, it's still just crime.

[00:18:27] Speaker 03:
It's still just violence, just because it doesn't have that

[00:18:29] Speaker 03:
additional motivation and that, oh, we wanted money or we wanted land, we wanted something tangible.

[00:18:35] Speaker 03:
They may have just wanted to engage in crime because they're degenerate individuals who like to engage in depravity.

[00:18:41] Speaker 00:
But let's assume, I'm going to change the hypothetical a little bit.

[00:18:43] Speaker 00:
Let's say right here in San Francisco, an elderly Chinese man is beaten and robbed.

[00:18:49] Speaker 00:
And during the robbery, they use a bunch of ethnic slurs towards this old man.

[00:18:53] Speaker 00:
I mean, isn't there at least some evidence that it wasn't solely due to general crime, that maybe they wanted to rob someone and they don't like Chinese people, and that's why they're doing it?

[00:19:02] Speaker 00:
If that's right, how is that case not—isn't that the same as this case?

[00:19:07] Speaker 03:
Well, some doesn't mean compel.

[00:19:08] Speaker 03:
At this point, we're looking at compelling.

[00:19:11] Speaker 00:
But the word that the board used was solely.

[00:19:14] Speaker 00:
I think that's the problem here.

[00:19:16] Speaker 00:
So why, if in the example I just used, we can all agree it wasn't solely based on general crime, that it was because this guy was Chinese, how is that different than this case?

[00:19:27] Speaker 03:
Because the board here found that her status as a woman, as a Mexican female, played no role.

[00:19:33] Speaker 04:
But the question is, why is that finding supported by substantial evidence when there's, I think, speaking for myself, evidence that compels a conclusion that it is at least a mixed motive?

[00:19:49] Speaker 03:
I guess I don't know how I can say it anymore other than that there is general crime.

[00:19:55] Speaker 03:
I'll say that the court has unpublished decisions saying that sexual violence can occur to a man as well.

[00:20:01] Speaker 03:
I think that might be some of the

[00:20:04] Speaker 04:
So with the framework sort of stuck in and that sexual violence... We have this case here where, as your opposing counsel pointed out, in addition to the fact of the crime, the nature of the crime being sexual assault, you also have explicit direct evidence of gender-based motive.

[00:20:21] Speaker 04:
So that's the use of the slur.

[00:20:24] Speaker 04:
So this is not a case in which it is, you know,

[00:20:28] Speaker 04:
There is no evidence of a gender-based motive.

[00:20:34] Speaker 03:
Right.

[00:20:35] Speaker 03:
And I'm not saying there's no evidence.

[00:20:37] Speaker 03:
I'm saying that it doesn't compel the conclusion.

[00:20:40] Speaker 03:
And the agency had a choice between two reasonable alternatives.

[00:20:43] Speaker 03:
It selected one, and now that's conclusive unless there is that compelling evidence.

[00:20:51] Speaker 01:
Well, so how does that work?

[00:20:52] Speaker 01:
Let's just take for withholding, because even if there's a motive for general crime, that would not preclude relief for withholding or removal if the attackers were also motivated, at least in part, based on her status as a Mexican woman.

[00:21:12] Speaker 01:
Why doesn't the evidence compel the conclusion that, at least in part, the attack was motivated by her status as a Mexican woman,

[00:21:21] Speaker 01:
violent rape, calling her bitch repeatedly, calling her a pretty one, knocking out her front teeth, the threats against her family.

[00:21:32] Speaker 01:
Why doesn't the evidence compel the conclusion, at least for that, if not one central reason?

[00:21:39] Speaker 03:
Because it's sort of the same inquiry.

[00:21:42] Speaker 03:
We're still looking at the board considered that by the use of the word solely.

[00:21:47] Speaker 03:
It's not about

[00:21:49] Speaker 03:
whether it compels a conclusion that they use a mixed motive analysis.

[00:21:53] Speaker 03:
They did use a mixed motive analysis and that's evidenced again by the word solely.

[00:21:58] Speaker 03:
So now it's whether

[00:21:59] Speaker 03:
the evidence compels that at least a reason was her membership in the social group of Mexican females.

[00:22:08] Speaker 01:
So if this isn't the case, what case would compel the conclusion that someone who's a member of Mexican women would have been targeted?

[00:22:21] Speaker 03:
I mean, that would be really up to the agency to say.

[00:22:24] Speaker 03:
I could speculate, I guess, if that's sort of what the court is asking me to do.

[00:22:28] Speaker 03:
I'd say the use of the term here, bitch, is not really... I don't think, personally, it's the same as some of the other derogatories or slurs that

[00:22:40] Speaker 03:
that my opponent mentioned, certainly ones you can't say out loud, or we have to use sort of something for that, they're not on the same level.

[00:22:49] Speaker 03:
I think there are other derogatory words for women that probably shouldn't be said out loud, and bitch is not one of them.

[00:22:56] Speaker 03:
So I'm not sure, sort of even colloquially, that's kind of a common term to use.

[00:23:02] Speaker 03:
We don't have any evidence of how it's used in Mexico, I can say from personal experience.

[00:23:06] Speaker 03:
It's widely used in the United States to refer to both men and women.

[00:23:10] Speaker 03:
it has no really connection to a gender-based usage necessarily.

[00:23:16] Speaker 03:
And the same with the word pretty.

[00:23:18] Speaker 03:
Is it necessarily a gender-linked type of term?

[00:23:24] Speaker 03:
I mean, anyone can be pretty.

[00:23:25] Speaker 03:
I think men and women are called pretty all the time.

[00:23:30] Speaker 03:
And so when we're looking at, I think, a grand total of three words by my count, what that tells us about the motivation, what's going on in the attackers' heads,

[00:23:40] Speaker 03:
that could, a fact finder could say that's enough to reach that conclusion, or say it's a mixed motive that played a role, a reason in the motivation, but it doesn't compel any reasonable fact finder to find that.

[00:23:55] Speaker 03:
That's essentially what that standard is saying, is that any reasonable fact finder would say, no, that's the only reason, or at least that played, at minimum, a reason.

[00:24:02] Speaker 01:
Well, no, no, not only a reason.

[00:24:04] Speaker 01:
I think you're reversing it, because withholding it's at least a reason.

[00:24:09] Speaker 01:
Right.

[00:24:09] Speaker 01:
And for asylum, it's one central reason.

[00:24:12] Speaker 01:
But even for asylum, one central reason can permit multiple primary reasons for the crime.

[00:24:19] Speaker 01:
And I think the difficulty of your position is it's hard to look at this evidence and see that gender didn't at least play some role in this.

[00:24:28] Speaker 01:
And I at least am not seeing that much analysis from the agency really engaging with that kind of evidence.

[00:24:36] Speaker 03:
Right.

[00:24:37] Speaker 03:
I agree, like I've said.

[00:24:38] Speaker 03:
I know it's probably boring to hear it again, but I don't have much to work with.

[00:24:43] Speaker 03:
I would have loved it if the board gave us more to work with.

[00:24:46] Speaker 03:
But they do use the word solely.

[00:24:48] Speaker 03:
I know that's not much to hang a hat on, but that is some evidence that they did consider all of the evidence, all of the motivations.

[00:24:56] Speaker 03:
And again, sort of backing out and looking at the general circumstances of this incident, she didn't know these people before.

[00:25:03] Speaker 03:
She was grabbed off the street.

[00:25:05] Speaker 03:
Yes, they said, they alluded that they knew her.

[00:25:08] Speaker 03:
We don't know if they actually knew her, if they were casing her, for example, or something like that.

[00:25:16] Speaker 03:
In a way, that suggests more that they were targeting her specifically, that they weren't interested in some sort of general animus against Mexican females.

[00:25:24] Speaker 03:
They were interested in this petitioner, particularly.

[00:25:28] Speaker 03:
Looking at all that.

[00:25:30] Speaker 03:
That's the overall record that the court is confronted with.

[00:25:34] Speaker 03:
And so it has to say all of that compels that it at least played a reason, or in a mixed motive analysis, that that played at least a reason.

[00:25:43] Speaker 03:
There's just not enough here to compel that.

[00:25:46] Speaker 03:
And another reasonable finding is what the agency reached here was that it was solely general crime and violence.

[00:25:56] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:25:56] Speaker 00:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:25:57] Speaker 00:
Appreciate it.

[00:26:02] Speaker 02:
Your honor, what the agency is asking this court to do is, your honor, you asked me earlier that is it sufficient that it's just gender-based country conditions could then immediately equate that any harm that the respondent suffered would be based on her gender.

[00:26:18] Speaker 02:
I said no, because you have to look at the surrounding circumstances.

[00:26:21] Speaker 02:
But what the agency is asking this court to do right now is to do exactly the same thing, but on the other side.

[00:26:27] Speaker 02:
They're saying, oh, also violence just happens generally.

[00:26:30] Speaker 02:
So because general violence also happens there, then it's reasonable to say that she was targeted because of that when there's no other evidence supporting that conclusion.

[00:26:42] Speaker 02:
That is not sufficient.

[00:26:43] Speaker 02:
And just because, and one central reason doesn't mean the only reason, Your Honor.

[00:26:49] Speaker 02:
One central reason for Ms.

[00:26:52] Speaker 02:
Rosas-Romain's harm here is because of her gender.

[00:26:56] Speaker 02:
Also, going back to when she went to the police and they refused to take a report, that does support Nexus here because one of the things that Nexus talks about is that assailants commit crimes and target women specifically because they think they're inferior to men, but also because they know that there's gonna be impunity.

[00:27:15] Speaker 02:
No one's gonna do anything to them for doing that

[00:27:18] Speaker 04:
And what is your record site for that?

[00:27:20] Speaker 02:
Yes.

[00:27:21] Speaker 02:
So here, so specifically we go to the uncontested expert report.

[00:27:28] Speaker 02:
This is AR-249, where the expert report specifically talks about this specific issue.

[00:27:36] Speaker 02:
And thus, Your Honor, based on those reasons,

[00:27:40] Speaker 02:
This is the only evidence in the record is because of her gender.

[00:27:44] Speaker 02:
But even if this court believed that there could be some other evidence in the record and this is a mixed motive case, then even then it succeeds because at least one central reason for her harm based on the surrounding circumstances is because of her gender because that's the only thing that they alluded to.

[00:28:01] Speaker 02:
when they went ahead and detained her and then raped her.

[00:28:06] Speaker 01:
Let me ask this, counsel.

[00:28:07] Speaker 01:
Isn't the agency entitled to look at, I'm trying to think of, I'm grappling with your argument that there is no evidence other than gender-based.

[00:28:18] Speaker 01:
Why can't the agency look at a crime and say, just from the nature of the crime having occurred, that a motivation was to commit that crime?

[00:28:27] Speaker 01:
Why would the agency need to find something in addition to that, saying, oh, I wanted to rob someone because I'm poor.

[00:28:33] Speaker 01:
I want some extra money.

[00:28:34] Speaker 01:
Why can't the agency just look at the fact that a crime occurred and say it was motivated by a desire to commit crime?

[00:28:43] Speaker 02:
Well, Your Honor, one of the key things here is the court just mentioned, oh, I wanted to commit that robbery because I'm poor.

[00:28:48] Speaker 02:
Yes, when someone's committing a robbery, Your Honor, but there's no evidence of a robbery being committed here.

[00:28:53] Speaker 02:
And just stating that someone.

[00:28:56] Speaker 02:
Whenever someone is harmed in any country, it usually is going to be a crime, unless it's government sanctions in some way.

[00:29:06] Speaker 02:
And even then, we say, well, some government sanctioning is still a crime, and still would constitute torture in certain circumstances.

[00:29:13] Speaker 02:
So simply the fact that something is a crime when someone is harmed doesn't generally mean that it's going to take it out of the ambit.

[00:29:20] Speaker 02:
of being on account of a protected ground.

[00:29:22] Speaker 02:
What's critical here is to look at the surrounding circumstances and particularly what the assailant specifically said to the respondent in this case.

[00:29:31] Speaker 02:
And that's what's critical for that analysis, Your Honor.

[00:29:35] Speaker 02:
And in all of these cases where the court has held generalized violence is because aside from that violence occurs in that country, there is other evidence of other motives, like I mentioned before, of someone being robbed.

[00:29:49] Speaker 02:
So that is what's the key difference here, Your Honor, and then this court should reverse the agency's decision.

[00:29:54] Speaker 02:
Thank you for your time.

[00:29:56] Speaker 00:
All right.

[00:29:56] Speaker 00:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:29:57] Speaker 00:
Thank you both.

[00:29:58] Speaker 00:
It is nice to have excellent counsel.

[00:30:00] Speaker 00:
I really appreciate both of your efforts today, very much so.

[00:30:03] Speaker 00:
This matter is submitted, and we are done for today.

[00:30:06] Speaker 00:
Thank you.