Query Custom post type with Taxonomy Custom Field

Ok, I did it another way.

First, get all the terms for the taxonomy.
If the term is equal to the value requested, put it into an array
Then do the tax_query with this array.

Final

$argsc = array(
'order'             => 'ASC',
'hide_empty'        => true,
'fields'            => 'all', 
); 

$termsc = get_terms("cities", $argsc);
$cities_array = array( );
foreach ( $termsc as $cterm ) {
//Get country Customf ield for that term
$thecountry = get_field( 'country', $cterm );
 if($country == $thecountry){
 //if custom field == variable from select/search put in array
  array_push($cities_array,$cterm->name);
 }else{
 //do nothing
 }
}

ksort( $cities_array);//just sorting
$args = array(
    // Arguments for your query.
    'posts_per_page'    => '12',
    'post_type' => 'ARTICLES',
        'orderby' => 'date',
        'order' => ASC,
        'tax_query' => array(
                array(
                'taxonomy' => 'cities',
                'field'    => 'slug',
                'terms'    => $cities_array,
            ),

        ),
      'paged' => $paged,
    );

error code: 523