[00:00:01] Speaker 04: Good morning, everyone. [00:00:02] Speaker 04: We'll take the cases up in the order in which they appear on the docket. [00:00:07] Speaker 04: We're on a tight schedule today, so I just want everybody now to watch their clocks. [00:00:13] Speaker 04: And if you find yourself not having anything else to say, sit down. [00:00:18] Speaker 04: You don't have to fill up the time, okay? [00:00:20] Speaker 04: So the first two cases are submitted on the briefs. [00:00:26] Speaker 04: That's Quijano versus Bondi and Perez versus Bondi. [00:00:30] Speaker 04: And we will take up Mateo Mateo versus Bondi. [00:00:38] Speaker 04: So, Mr. Jimenez? [00:00:43] Speaker 02: Yes, good morning, Your Honors. [00:00:45] Speaker 02: May it please the court, my name is Maurice Jimenez and I represent Ms. [00:00:49] Speaker 02: Mateo Mateo. [00:00:50] Speaker 02: I'd like to reserve three minutes for rebuttal. [00:00:53] Speaker 04: Okay, what's your clock? [00:00:56] Speaker 02: This case involves four legal errors in the agency's decision. [00:01:02] Speaker 02: Before turning to the legal framework, I want to briefly address the factual record the agency relied upon. [00:01:08] Speaker 00: Council, before you do that, I have a couple of questions relating to the OSC that we issued for the initial brief that was filed containing false case citations and statements about what the case has said. [00:01:24] Speaker 00: So there are two questions that I have, one relating to the status of the lawyer who filed that brief. [00:01:30] Speaker 00: Is that counsel no longer, I understand that she withdrew as counsel of record for this case. [00:01:36] Speaker 00: Is she in fact no longer with your firm? [00:01:39] Speaker 02: That's correct, Your Honor. [00:01:40] Speaker 02: She resigned pending an evaluation of her practice management. [00:01:46] Speaker 00: Okay. [00:01:47] Speaker 00: I understand from the response to the OSC that there may have been other filings made by that lawyer that may have included some of the same errors and I trust that your firm is taking steps to review any filings made with this court that include improper citations. [00:02:02] Speaker 02: That's correct, Your Honor. [00:02:03] Speaker 00: Okay. [00:02:03] Speaker 00: And my second question has to do with, and I don't want to get into any attorney-client privilege information, but I guess this is more of a statement than a question. [00:02:13] Speaker 00: But I trust that your firm is taking adequate steps to discourage fees that may have been paid by your client with respect to filings that were improper in this court. [00:02:23] Speaker 02: That's correct, Your Honor. [00:02:24] Speaker 02: We authorized a full refund in the matter. [00:02:28] Speaker 02: Given the error, we also notified the petitioner of the order to show cause and the error committed. [00:02:36] Speaker 00: You understand the seriousness of a filing like that on behalf of a client that is relying on counsel [00:02:43] Speaker 00: to submit accurate and appropriate filings with this courts not only serious in terms of your representation of the client but also for making misrepresentations to this court. [00:02:53] Speaker 02: Of course. [00:03:00] Speaker 04: I think you know that we could issue an order show cause rate contempt. [00:03:06] Speaker 04: There's all sorts of better sanctions available. [00:03:09] Speaker 04: This is a serious. [00:03:11] Speaker 04: Issue in the courts. [00:03:13] Speaker 04: I was asked about it yesterday when I was speaking to a group of elite lawyers in Los Angeles and We take this very seriously there could have been worse consequences, but I also I'm concerned about the mental health of your I don't know former associate and I hope someone is looking into that and [00:03:41] Speaker 02: Your Honor, this is a very serious issue, and it severely impacted the firm in terms of its operations and reevaluating AI protocols, what systems to use, what systems not to use, how to check peer review, reviewing the citations that are included. [00:04:05] Speaker 02: As for Miss Rogers, I hold her in high regard and I understand that this was a big mistake, but it's unfortunate in that that's what it was. [00:04:17] Speaker 02: She's very capable, she's smart, she's a great writer. [00:04:20] Speaker 02: I can't explain the reasons for how this occurred. [00:04:26] Speaker 02: I think I have to [00:04:28] Speaker 02: refer back to her statement to the court. [00:04:33] Speaker 02: But I've maintained contact with her to try and just make sure that one, we handle the cases that she had entered before appropriately. [00:04:40] Speaker 02: And of course, just in my practice, I try to help and guide those who are under my supervision. [00:04:50] Speaker 04: OK. [00:04:51] Speaker 04: Let's get to your client. [00:04:53] Speaker 04: Let's talk about [00:04:56] Speaker 04: whether or not, I mean, you have a client who is deemed credible and the reason the BIA denied the claim was that it stated there was no nexus between the abuse and the purported protected ground and also no showing that the government is unable or unwilling to protect. [00:05:20] Speaker 04: So can you address those issues? [00:05:23] Speaker 02: Yes, Your Honor. [00:05:24] Speaker 02: I believe in order to properly address those, I have to go back to the factual record because we know what the immigration reviewed as he summarized those facts on the administrative record starting at 52. [00:05:40] Speaker 02: And so those facts describe that her partner, Mr. Martin, [00:05:46] Speaker 02: would pull her, kick her, punch her, hit her in the legs and arms and even caused a broken wrist. [00:05:53] Speaker 02: So those factual items are not in dispute. [00:05:57] Speaker 02: But what's missing from that record and from the legal analysis that follows are with respect to Nexus, the record contains testimony describing an incident in which Mr. Martin justified his conduct. [00:06:14] Speaker 02: by telling Ms. [00:06:14] Speaker 02: Mateo Mateo that she was a woman and should handle matters herself. [00:06:18] Speaker 02: That's on AR 141. [00:06:20] Speaker 02: The second issue is when Ms. [00:06:23] Speaker 02: Mateo sought police assistance to recover her child, the police told her to retrieve the child herself rather than intervening. [00:06:31] Speaker 02: That's at AR 113. [00:06:33] Speaker 02: That response is highly relevant to whether the government was willing or able to provide protection to a victim who had already sought assistance from authorities. [00:06:43] Speaker 02: And then third, Ms. [00:06:44] Speaker 02: Mateo testified that Mr. Martin sent masked men to attempt to kidnap two of her children at AR-125. [00:06:52] Speaker 02: The agency noted uncertainty about the identity of the masked men, but I think that was missing the point as the record attributes that act to Mr. Martin himself. [00:07:01] Speaker 02: The testimony reflects that the continuing threats against her and the family lacked any meaningful intervention. [00:07:10] Speaker 02: And so those facts relate also to the nexus, right? [00:07:14] Speaker 02: The immigration judge relying, I believe, in matter of AB and some of the dicta that was included on that decision found that it was a personal dispute, but it did not [00:07:27] Speaker 02: adequately consider the cultural context, which is also referenced in the country condition on AR 244, that the indigenous women in Guatemala are often subject to violence and that it remains widespread and is often tolerated within entrenched gender hierarchies. [00:07:52] Speaker 03: Council, does it matter at all that Alonso Martinez was abusive in general? [00:07:56] Speaker 03: I mean, he was hurting Pedro as well, his son, after he took him. [00:08:02] Speaker 03: You know, what are we to make of that? [00:08:04] Speaker 03: Because that became an issue for the IJ. [00:08:08] Speaker 02: I think it matters significantly because it shows the dominion over what he feels is his family. [00:08:17] Speaker 02: And that extends to the petitioner, Ms. [00:08:20] Speaker 02: Mateo Mateo, and her children, right? [00:08:24] Speaker 02: Two of those children are derivatives on this case. [00:08:27] Speaker 02: She fled the country in large part because of fears of what he would do to those children and to her. [00:08:34] Speaker 03: But on the protected grounds, wasn't it the PSG's, weren't they the common law married women and indigenous Mayan women? [00:08:41] Speaker 03: And what I'm telling you is, but he just kind of abused everybody. [00:08:45] Speaker 03: So doesn't that kind of cut against the PSG Nexus finding? [00:08:50] Speaker 02: Well, respectfully, I would also ask the court to consider the Guatemalan women, which we proposed for the first time on appeal with the BIA. [00:09:03] Speaker 02: I would find that it's a subset of those groups. [00:09:06] Speaker 02: All of the three petitioners, the writers, are [00:09:10] Speaker 02: our Guatemalan women as well. [00:09:13] Speaker 02: And so the findings of the fact, I understand, matter of why WIC requires presentation of and delineation of the PSG to the immigration judge, but we're also in an area that constantly changes. [00:09:26] Speaker 02: It's moved before the judge, before the BIA, and again during this petition for review. [00:09:33] Speaker 02: And so what we're seeing is if WIC allows an exception where it says, generally, they won't entertain PSGs on appeal. [00:09:41] Speaker 02: That's not categorical. [00:09:43] Speaker 02: And this is a case where an exception would be worth applying to consider, not necessarily the facts, because it doesn't change. [00:09:53] Speaker 02: gender, right, all of the PSGs include gender in some way. [00:09:57] Speaker 02: And so the finding of fact has been established. [00:10:00] Speaker 02: The question is whether it is a cognizable PSG. [00:10:03] Speaker 02: It's a mixed question of fact and law. [00:10:05] Speaker 02: And so it would have been appropriate in our argument for an appellate, the Board of Immigration Appeals or for this panel to consider that as well. [00:10:17] Speaker 02: And I see I'm running close to the end of my time. [00:10:21] Speaker 04: Okay. [00:10:21] Speaker 04: Do you want to reserve the remainder? [00:10:23] Speaker 02: Yes, Your Honors, thank you. [00:10:25] Speaker 04: Thank you. [00:10:29] Speaker 01: All right. [00:10:29] Speaker 01: Good morning, and may it please the Court, Alexa Perlmutter on behalf of the Attorney General. [00:10:36] Speaker 01: As Your Honors pointed out, there are two independently dispositive issues before the Court, the Unable or Unwilling finding and the Nexus finding, and it's petitioner's burden to identify evidence compelling a conclusion contrary to the agency's as to both in order to prevail. [00:10:53] Speaker 01: Beginning with the unable or unwilling finding under this court standard set out in Hussain, if the government is demonstrating efforts to subdue non-state actors, that satisfies the unable or unwilling finding. [00:11:05] Speaker 01: Here we have a decade of unfortunately unreported abuse. [00:11:09] Speaker 01: We then have three interactions with the police where on each occasion the police took steps to assist. [00:11:16] Speaker 01: And this is on pages 129 and 131 of the record. [00:11:21] Speaker 01: I'd like to just point out that the record site 113 cited by opposing counsel, that was prior to cross-examination when petitioner was confronted with her own declaration, which states that the police did provide a protective order and that the police, again, when that order was not followed, stated that they would follow up themselves with another order. [00:11:44] Speaker 01: Furthermore, when the masked men – when Petitioner reported the masked men to the police, she was unable to provide any [00:11:51] Speaker 01: identifying details as to those men other than that they had tattoos and under this court's decision in Truong and several other cases when the government is not provided with sufficient information to conduct an investigation that is not a basis to find the government was unable or unwilling to protect. [00:12:10] Speaker 01: I'd also like to point out on page 148 of the record is when petitioner makes clear that she did not know [00:12:17] Speaker 01: that her ex-partner had sent these men. [00:12:20] Speaker 01: This was – she specifically said she doesn't know, and it was just her guess and the guess of other people around her. [00:12:27] Speaker 01: Furthermore, the country conditions shows that the government is offering protective services to people like Petitioner in these situations. [00:12:35] Speaker 01: Again, she did not report the abuse that she experienced, and the immigration judge reasonably used those country conditions to kind of bolster the findings there. [00:12:48] Speaker 01: Turning to Nexus, the agency found as a factual matter. [00:12:52] Speaker 01: that the motive was an interpersonal dispute. [00:12:55] Speaker 01: Substantial evidence supports this conclusion. [00:12:58] Speaker 01: If we take petitioner at her word, she repeatedly testified on pages 114 to 116 of the record that her ex-partner got angry at her when she asked for money and lashed out in that way. [00:13:11] Speaker 01: We also know, again, once she was able to move out of his house, the only time when he again physically harmed her is when she returned [00:13:19] Speaker 01: in the custody dispute over the child. [00:13:22] Speaker 01: Under Rodriguez Zuniga and Parsemova, simply using the word woman as a term is a means to degrade petitioners certainly, but the evidence does not compel that her gender was the reason for that harm. [00:13:39] Speaker 01: As your honor stated, the fact that he turned toward Pedro, who is not a petitioner in this case, suggests that it is not necessarily her gender. [00:13:48] Speaker 01: And again, as long as these findings, as long as the petitioner does not identify evidence compelling the alternative conclusion, we believe this petition for review should be denied. [00:13:59] Speaker 01: Unless the court has further questions, we're happy to rest on the arguments in our brief. [00:14:06] Speaker 04: All right. [00:14:08] Speaker 04: Mr. Jimenez, you have 30 seconds, but go ahead. [00:14:15] Speaker 02: I would just quickly note that we don't really need to engage in post-hoc justification for the findings from the immigration judge. [00:14:25] Speaker 02: They're there. [00:14:26] Speaker 02: They note when the police failed to act. [00:14:30] Speaker 02: And that alone was not analyzed when reviewing the departure from the home, which was a punishment. [00:14:40] Speaker 02: And my time is done, Your Honors. [00:14:42] Speaker 04: All right. [00:14:43] Speaker 04: Thank you so much. [00:14:45] Speaker 04: Mateo Mateo versus Bondi will be submitted. [00:14:49] Speaker 04: The next case is also submitted on the Braves, Martinez versus Bondi. [00:14:55] Speaker 04: And we'll take up US versus Barnes.